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YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 



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SIR JOHN HOTHAM. 



Yorkshire Family 
Romance. 



BY 

FREDERICK ROSS, F.R.H.S., 

AUTHOR OF 

CELEBRITIES OF YORKSHIRE WOLDS,'"' "PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION. 

ETC. 



HULL: 
WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE .HULL PRESS. 

London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co., 
Limited. 

i 89 1. 







• • ••< 

• • « • I 



Contents. 



The Synod of Streoneshalh 

The Doomed Heir of Osmotherley 

e ad wine, the eoyal m art ye, 

SrVYARD, THE VlCEROY 

Phases in the Life of a Political Martyr 
The Murderer's Bride 

The Earldom of Wiltes 

Black-Faced Clifford 

The Shepherd Lord 

The Felons of Ilkley 

The Ingilby Boar's Head -. 

The Eland Tragedy 

The Plumpton Marriage 

The Topcliffe Insurrection 

The Burning of Cottingham Castle 

The Alum Workers 

The Maiden of Marblehead 

Rise of the House of Phipps 

The Traitor Goyernor of Hull 



I 

1(5 

34 

44 

54 

65 

77 

91 

110 

130 

140 

158 

171 

189 

199 

213 

224 

232 

241 



YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 



The Synod of Streoneshalh. 

^^^JOETHUMBEIA was at peace, after 
1) ISS/Jl! a l° n £ period of anarchy, bloodshed, 
-ttt^> M1 [ battles, and murders. Christianity 
had been restored by St. Oswald, King and 
Martyr ; York Cathedral, commenced by King 
Eadwine, had been completed ; the great Abbey 
of Lindisfarne had become a centre of Christian 
light and civilisation ; and several other churches 
and religious houses were growing up over the 
length and breadth of the land. Oswy, a wise, 
vigorous, and warlike King, one of the most 
illustrious of his line, ruled Northumbria in its 
integrity; held northern Mercia under his sway; 
had subjected the southern Picts and Scots 
to his authority ; and was Bretwalda of the 
Heptarchy. This position, however, he had only 
gained, and this peace firmly secured, after a 



2 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

great struggle and the shedding of much blood, 
and, it must be added, after the perpetration of 
an atrocious crime. When Paulinus, under the 
patronage of King Eadwine, had introduced 
Christianity into Northumbria, Mercia was ruled 
by Penda, a ferocious Pagan, who made a vow 
to Woden that he would exterminate the new 
heretical faith or lay down his life in the attempt. 
Accordingly, he entered into a compact with 
Cadwallon, a British Prince of Wales, and 
together they invaded Northumbria. Eadwine 
met them in battle and was slain ; Paulinus and 
the Queen, with her children, fled to Kent, and 
the kingdom was harried by the victors, who 
sought out the Christians and put them indis- 
criminately to the sword. Cadwallon remained 
as ruler of the kingdom, and under his barbarous 
measures Christianity became almost, if not 
altogether, extinct, whilst the altars of Woden 
were re-established in every direction. Osric and 
Eanfrid, grandsons of ^Ella, first King of Deira, 
after the death of Eadwine, were raised by the 
voice of the people to the thrones of Deira 
and Bernicia. They had been baptised at the 
court of their uncle by Paulinus, but now, as they 
had no Christians to govern, they apostatised and 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 3 

relapsed into the faith of Woden, but their reign 
was short ; they laid siege to Cadwallon in York, 
were defeated, Osric slain in the battle, and 
Eanfrid put to death afterwards ; and Cadwallon 
continued to rule the Northumbrians with an iron 
hand. At this time there was a young Prince, 
an exile in Scotland — Oswald, son of ^Ethelfred, 
King of Bernicia — who had fled thither when a 
youth, and had been instructed in the principles 
of Christianity by the monks of Iona. He heard 
of the deaths of the two Kings, and of the misery 
to which his native land was subjected by the 
tyranny and oppression of Cadwallon, and deter- 
mined upon going thither and attempting to 
drive out the usurper. On his arrival the people 
flocked round his standard, and, with a cross borne 
in front of his army, he met Cadwallon at 
Deniseburn, near Hexham, and defeated him, 
Cadwallon falling in the fight. He established 
his Court at York, as King of Northumbria, and 
eventually became Sixth Bretwalda, extending 
his territories beyond the Tweed. He restored 
Christianity, by means of missionaries from Iona, 
completed the church of York, commenced by 
Eadwine, and founded other churches and some 
monasteries, leading a life of usefulness, beloved 



4 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

by his people for his piety and good government. 
But Penda was still living, as bitter as ever 
against Christianity, and intelligence reached the 
Court of York that he was preparing for a 
second invasion of Northumbria, again to trample 
out the nascent Christianity. In order to be 
beforehand with his enemy, Oswald invaded 
Mercia, where the Pagan King was again 
victorious, and Oswald slain at Masserfield, which 
came, in consequence, to be called Oswald's- 
town, corrupted in modern times into Oswestry. 
Penda caused his body to be torn limb frdm limb 
and cast abroad to be devoured by wild beasts, 
then crossed the border into Northumbria, and 
ravaged the land with fire and sword. 

When the Mercians had retired, Oswy, an 
illegitimate half-brother of Oswald, was called to 
the throne of Northumbria in the year 642 ; but 
two years afterwards, Oswin, son of Osric the 
Apostate, disputed his right on the ground of 
his illegitimacy, and being backed by a numerous 
body of friends, Oswy agreed to a compromise, 
he taking Bernicia, and Oswin Deira. Seven 
years after, a dispute arose between the two 
Kings about the boundaries of their territories, 
and they took up arms to settle the question by 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 5 

the sword. The two armies met at Wulfer's 
Dun, near Catterick, when Oswin, perceiving the 
enemy's forces to be much more numerous than 
his own, and reluctant to shed blood recklessly, 
dismissed his men and went to the house of his 
friend Count Hudwold, at Ingethlin (Gilling), to 
conceal himself for the present, with a view of 
entering a monastery ; but Hudwold betrayed him, 
and Oswy sent Ethelwin to murder him, who 
faithfully executed his mission. Eanfleda, Oswy's 
Queen, a daughter of King Eadwine, afterwards, 
with the consent of her husband, founded a 
monastery at Gilling, where prayers should be 
offered up for the soul of Oswin, and for the pardon 
of Oswy. The people of Deira refused to recognise 
Oswy as King ; drove him back across the Tees 
when he came to take possession, and elected 
^Ethelwald, a son of Oswald, for their King. 

The hoary-headed old Pagan, Penda, although 
now well stricken in years, could not witness the 
advance of Christianity, under Oswy, without 
pious emotion, and he resolved upon still another 
invasion of Northumbria in the cause of Woden. 
He entered into an alliance with Athelm, King- 
of the East Angles, and ^Ethelwald of Deira — 
the latter incited by motives of policy — and the 



6 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

confederates marched against Oswy.. A great 
battle ensued at Winwidfield, near Leeds, when 
.^Ethelwald, who was a Christian, repented of 
having entered into a league with, the enemies of 
that faith, and stood aloof. After an obstinate 
fight, Penda and thirty of his chief officers were 
slain, and the greater part of his army cut to 
pieces. This was the last struggle in England 
between Christianity and Paganism. 

Thus there was peace in the land after the 
scenes of violence and bloodshed occasioned by 
the fanatic fury of Penda, and Oswy found 
himself in a position to carry out his views for 
establishing Christianity on a sure basis. Before 
the -battle of Winwidfield he had made a vow that 
he would build a great monastery at Streoneshalh, 
endow it with the twelve manors of Crown 
property lying round the White Bay (Whitby), 
and that he would dedicate his daughter Eanfleda 
to perpetual virginity and the service of God in 
the monastery, if he should, by the blessing of 
God, be successful over his Pagan enemy. 

The Cathedral of York was now finished, and 
he sent the masons and other workmen to erect 
the monastery and church on the lofty cliff 
overhanging the outfall of the river Esk into the 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 7 

White Bay, and its walls uprose with marvellous 
rapidity. As soon as it was completed it was 
opened for monks and nuns of the Benedictine 
order, a colony of whom migrated from Hartle- 
pool ; and the Princess Hilda, a woman highly 
esteemed for her learning, virtue, and piety, was 
placed at the head as Prioress. At this time 
there were two bodies of Christians in Northum- 
bria, antagonistic to each other on many points of 
doctrine and ceremonial, the most important being 
the question of the proper time for the celebration 
of the Easter festival, and most important was it 
deemed in these primitive times, for both parties 
firmly believed that the soul's salvation was 
imperilled by its non-observance on the right 
day. The antagonistic sects were the priests 
and monks from Iona, representatives of the 
primitive British Church — which had been 
planted in the island, it was said, by Joseph of 
Arimathea — with their converts, comprehending 
the greater portion of the Northumbrian Chris- 
tians ; and on the other side, the ecclesiastics 
who had imbibed their faith at the feet of 
Bomish teachers. 

The origin of this antagonism of opinion came 
about in the following way. Christianity had been 



8 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

extirpated in Northumbria by the sword of 
Penda, and the people had relapsed into heathen- 
ism, very few remaining who still clung to the 
faith as taught by Paulinus. This was the state 
of the country when Oswald came to the throne. 
He had imbibed the tenets of Christianity in the 
schools of Iona, and sent thither for missionaries 
to re-convert his people, and founded the see of 
Lindisfarne, which became the focus of religion 
and civilisation in his kingdom. Thus, when 
Oswy ascended the throne, Christianity of the 
ancient British type prevailed in the land. But 
there were others who had been educated in 
Southern England, France, and Italy, who held 
to the faith as promulgated by Augustine, 
Paulinus, and other Roman missionaries, and a 
great deal of controversy, disputation, and even 
quarrels on tenets of belief and religious obser- 
vances, took place between the two divisions of the 
Church. First and foremost, as stated above, was 
that of the proper time for observing the festival 
of Easter. The British Church celebrated it on 
the day of the full moon next after the vernal 
equinox ; the Bomish, not on the day of the full 
moon, but on the Sunday following. The former 
claimed St. John, the beloved apostle, and the 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 9 

usage of the Eastern Church, as their authorities ; 
the latter, the example of Saints Peter and Paul, 
backed by a decree of the council of Nice, and 
they branded as schismatics all who refused to 
conform to their mode ; whilst the British 
condemned to hell-fire all who deferred the 
celebration until the Sunday after the full moon. 
Bede said " It was not without reason that the 
question disturbed the minds of a great number 
of Christians, who were apprehensive lest after they 
had begun the race of salvation they should be 
found to have run in vain." This state of things 
caused great confusion, one section of the Church 
humbling themselves in abstinence, prayers, and 
tears, whilst the other were lifting up their voices 
in joyful celebration of the Resurrection. Even 
in the King's Palace there was disunion, Oswy, 
who had been educated in Scotland, and Eanfleda, 
his Queen, who had been taught in Kent, 
observing the festival, one on the one day, the 
other on the other. 

It was obvious that something must be done to 
put an end to these disputes, and Oswy at length 
determined upon calling together a Synod to 
settle the matter once and for all. There was also 
another question on which the two sections of 



10 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the Church were at daggers drawn, that of the 
tonsure, the Romish monks shaving the head 
all round, emblematic of the crown of thorns ; 
the British only in front as far back as the 
ears ; but this was not looked upon as a vital 
question, and was easily arranged after the great 
Easter dispute was settled. 

The King decided upon holding the Synod in 
his new monastery of Streoneshalh, and had 
summoned all the most notable ecclesiastics on 
both sides to discuss the question. It was a 
picturesque spectacle to see the Royal train and 
the monks and priests winding their way up the 
steep hill from the valley of the Esk and entering 
the portals of the priory on the summit, where it 
stood overlooking the expanse of sea, with its 
rounded arches and stunted pillars, radiant in 
the sunshine, and glitteringly white in the 
freshness of its architecture. The disputants 
assembled in the great hall, the King taking his 
place on the dais as president, with the prioress 
Hilda by his side. 

On the Scottish side were ranged Hilda, who, 
although she had been baptised by Paulinus, 
had been instructed at the feet of Aidan, the 
Ionian Bishop of Lindisfarne ; Colman, Bishop of 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 11 

Lindisfarne ; Cedd (a Northumbrian), Bishop of 
the East Saxons ; and a train of monks and 
priests from Ieolmkill and Lindisfarne. On the 
Romish side were Queen Eanfleda ; Prince Alfred, 
son of Oswy ; Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, who had 
been educated in Rome, a most able, eloquent, 
and learned man, the first Churchman of his age ; 
Agilbert, Bishop of Paris, formerly of the West 
Saxons ; James, the deacon who had been left 
by Paulinus in charge of the infant Northumbrian 
Church ; Ronan and Agathon, priests who had 
been educated in France, and others who had 
received instruction from Italian priests and 
monks. 

Oswy maintained a neutrality as president, 
although he adhered to the British mode ; and 
Cedd acted as interpreter. 

The King opened the Synod by briefly stating 
its object, the necessity of conformity in so 
important a point as that it was called together 
to discuss, praying the Holy Spirit to guide them 
in the debate ; and concluded by calling upon 
Bishop Colman to open the discussion. 

The Bishop said that Easter, as observed 
by his Church, was derived directly from the 
Apostles, not from a Romish bishop or a council 



12 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

of fallible men. Bishops Finan, Aidan, and 
Columba had so observed it ; but their authority, 
though eminently holy men, was not sufficient. 
Their warrant was based on the custom of St. 
John, the beloved disciple of Christ, therefore, 
recognising his high authority, and the fact that 
it was so observed by the Eastern and eldest-born 
Church, no one could dispute its being the true 
method. 

Bishop Agilbert was called upon to reply, 
but excused himself, as not knowing the North- 
umbrian tongue sufficiently well to make himself 
understood. Wilfrid, the Abbot, the great 
champion of his side, whose name was afterwards 
known from Rome to York, and who became 
Archbishop of York, thereupon rose and said, 
" Easter, as we observe it, is the same as 
we ourselves have seen it observed at Rome, 
where the blessed apostles, Saint Peter and Paul, 
lived, preached, suffered, and are buried ; and as, 
in our travels through Italy and France, whether 
for study or pilgrimage, we have always seen it 
observed. We know also, by relation, that the 
same obtains in the Churches of Asia, Africa, 
Egypt, and Greece, nay, among all the churches 
of the world, excepting in this remote and 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 13 

obscure island, where a few obstinate Britons 
pretend to dispute the affair with the whole 
world." 

At this taunt Bishop Colman said, " I marvel, 
brother Wilfrid, that you call ours a foolish 
contention, when we have for our pattern and 
guide so worthy an apostle as St. John, who 
alone leaned upon our Saviour's breast." 

Wilfrid, touched with compunction at having 
spoken too harshly, replied, " God forbid that 
I should accuse St. John," and entered into 
a learned statement of the early Christians 
accommodating their rites and ceremonies in 
accordance with those of the Jews, and that St. 
John, who kept the laws of Moses literally, thus 
celebrated the feast of Easter on the first day of 
the Jewish Passover, whether on Sunday or any 
other day. But St. Peter, knowing that Christ 
rose from the grave on a Sunday, celebrated the 
feast on that day of the week, in accordance with 
a command which he received from our Lord, 
which is certainly a higher authority than that 
of St. John ; and the decree of the council of 
Nice, in 525, was but a confirmation thereof. 
Colman replied, " Athanolius, so commendable 
for his holiness, and Father Columba, whose 



14 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

sanctity is proved by miracles, kept Easter as we 
do, and I do not deem it wise to depart from 
their method." 

" Their holiness and miracles," responded 
Wilfrid, " I dispute not ; but I have no doubt 
that when, in the day of judgment, they say, 
' Lord, have we not prophesied, cast out devils, and 
wrought miracles in Thy name ? ' He will answer, 
* Begone ; I know you not.' Can you compare 
Columba with the most blessed of the Apostles, to 
whom Christ said, ' Thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it ; and to thee I 
give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' ' 

" Did our Lord speak this to St. Peter ? " 
asked the King, of Colman. 

" Most certainly," was the reply. 
" Hitherto," continued the King, " I have 
observed the rule of St. John, and in ignorance, 
but now mine eyes are opened. You both agree 
that the words of our Lord, quoted by the Father 
Abbot, were spoken to St. Peter, and I deem it 
not wise to withstand or gainsay so potent a 
person as the doorkeeper of heaven, lest when I 
come thither I find them closed against me ; and 
I should recommend this assembly to decide 



THE SYNOD OF STREONESHALH. 15 

upon celebrating the festival after the mode of 
St. Peter." The result of this speech was that 
several went over from the British to the Roman 
side, and, after a few other speeches, the question 
was put to the vote, and decided almost 
unanimously in favour of the Romanists. Cedd, 
Bishop of the East Saxons, was one of the 
converts, but Colman declined submission, soon 
after resigned his bishopric, and with his monks 
and priests returned to Iona. 

Ultimately, however, all the branches of the 
Church conformed to the rule of St. Peter — the 
Picts in 699, the Scots, comprehending the 
monks of Iona, in 716, and the Britons or 
Welsh in 800. 



The Doomed Heir of Osmotherley. 



[HE Yale of Mowbray is one of the 
many beautiful pieces of landscape 
scenery with which the county of 
Yorkshire abounds ; a favourite sketching-ground 
for artists, and often seen, in detached portions, 
on the walls of the Royal Academy. An equal 
favourite, also, is it with the tourist and 
worshippers of natural beauty. If Dr. Syntax, 
when he mounted Grizzle to go in search of the 
picturesque, had come to the Yale of Mowbray, 
we may fancy that he would have considered his 
quest at an end, and his purpose accomplished. 

In the Saxon era it presented a somewhat 
different aspect from what it does now ; more 
strikingly magnificent and grand in its wild, 
natural beauty. Instead of cornfields, pastures, 
hedgerows, churches, mills, and mansions, it was 
one expanse of forest, with towering oaks, elms, 
and poplars ; and, beneath a tangled undergrowth 
of brushwood and briar, the home and haunts of 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 17 

the antlered stag, the wild boar, the wolf, and 
innumerable other wild creatures, four-footed, on 
the sward below, or pinion-borne amid the foliage 
above. It must not be supposed, however, that 
the vale was given up entirely to these denizens 
of woodland, and destitute of human inhabitants. 
The Lord of the valley was Earl Oswald, a 
Saxon, or, to speak more accurately, an Anglian 
nobleman — the greatest landed proprietor for 
many miles round. His mansion was seated on 
a gentle slope of the Hambleton Hills ; a one- 
storied edifice, consisting of a large hall, where 
he, his retainers, and domestic servants, partook 
of their meals, and where the latter slept by 
night, on straw or rushes spread on the floor, 
with some smaller family sleeping and guest 
rooms, a kitchen, brewhouse, and other necessary 
appliances of a nobleman's household, including 
a chapel with open, round-headed doorway, 
draped with a pair of woollen portieres, generally 
looped back, and displaying in the interior some 
roughly carpentered benches, and a lamp pendant 
from the roof. 

Around the mansion was some arable land, 
with granaries and stacks ; pasture land for 
horses, oxen, and sheep, protected by stockades 



18 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

from the incursions of wolves and other beasts 
of prey ; an orchard and a vegetable garden. 
Scattered about in clearings of the forest were 
the homesteads of the class correspondent with 
the modern tenant-farmer, with their oxen, 
swine, wains, and rude implements of husbandry ; 
and, nestling around the mansion, an aggregation 
of wattled and mud-built dwellings, the abodes 
of the villeins or serfs, hence denominated a village, 
in the centre of which stood the church, a very 
primitive structure of wood, consisting of nave 
and chancel only, without side aisles, transept, or 
tower. 

Earl Oswald was a young man of five-and- 
twenty years, comely in aspect and benign in 
manner ; and was a considerate overlord and 
kind master. He had not long been in posses- 
sion of his estates, his father having died only 
twelve months previously, his death having been 
occasioned by an accident when pursuing the 
wild boar in .the forest. The present Earl was 
the last of his race, having no brothers or other 
relatives to inherit the earldom, which would 
become extinct in case of his death without 
issue ; consequently it behoved him, in order to 
continue the succession, to look out for a wife. 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 19 

But at that time the choice was very limited ; it 
was essential that he should marry a lady with 
some pretensions to aristocratic birth, in order to 
keep up the dignity of his family ; and as people, 
even nobles, did not then travel far away from 
home, visiting only such families as resided 
within a moderate distance, his choice was rather 
restricted. It happened, however, that one day, 
when hunting in Cleveland, he met with a 
Thegn, one of the lower order of nobility, who 
invited him to his house to spend the night, as 
he was some distance from home. At supper he 
was introduced to the Thegn's daughter, Gytha, 
a beautiful young maiden, some three or four 
years younger than himself, and was so charmed 
with her beauty, amiability of deportment, and 
sensible conversation, that he became enamoured 
of her, and mentally resolved that if there were 
no obstacles in the way he would make her his 
countess and the mother of his heir. He made no 
declaration on that occasion, but finding the 
hunting round the bases of the great Cleveland 
hill, the Ottenberg, now called Roseberry 
Topping, fruitful of sport, he came again and 
again, seldom letting a week pass without one 
or two visits, and never failing to call at the 



20 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Thegn's house, where he was always cordially 
welcomed by Gytha and her father. The friend- 
ship thus commenced' soon ripened into intimacy, 
and when the Earl found that his attentions had 
made an impression on the heart of the fair 
maiden, he began to whisper in her ear the 
tale of love. As maidens, in those practical, 
unsophisticated days, knew not the art of 
coquetry, and were not apt at disguising the 
feelings of their hearts, Gytha listened with 
pleasure to his flattering tale, confessed at once 
that she reciprocated his love, and without any 
needless circumlocution or affected bashfulness con- 
sented to become his wife, which met with the full 
approbation of her father, and a month after- 
wards he bore her away to become the mistress 
of the mansion in the Mowbray Vale, and, it was 
hoped, the mother of the future lord of the 
domain. 

Months past along — delicious months — one 
succession of honeymoons ; the happy pair never 
tiring of each other's company. In the mornings 
the Earl would go forth to superintend the 
operations of ploughing, sowing, or harvesting, or 
to look after the careful tending of his flocks and 
herds ; and occasionally, for pastime or for the 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 21 

benefit of the larder, would penetrate the recesses 
of the forest, hunting-spear in hand, and sur- 
rounded by his hounds ; whilst the Lady Gytha 
directed the domestic affairs of the house, or 
occupied herself in her bower, with her hand- 
maidens, embroidering a set of arras for the 
adornment of the hall ; but they always spent 
the after-part of the day together in caressing 
converse. 

The months thus passed along, and began to 
resolve themselves into years, but still the great 
hope of their lives was not accomplished, that of 
giving an heir to carry downwards the honours and 
possessions of the family. For a long time they 
flattered themselves with this hope, despite the 
length of time that had elapsed since their 
marriage ; but when three or four years had gone 
into the past without any fruition of their hopes, 
they began to despond. The Earl became moody 
and melancholy in contemplating the probable and 
almost certain extinction of his race ; and his lady 
wept and mourned in secret, at the bitter 
disappointment her husband experienced, no less 
than at the denial to herself of the delights and 
pleasant anxieties of maternity. 

Another year or two, with their wintry storms 



22 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

and summer sunshine, went by, and the Earl had 
sunk into the depths of despair, when, after all 
hope had departed, a gleam of sunshine shot 
athwart " the winter of his discontent," heralding 
the coming of a glorious summer. The probable 
birth of a living child, and, it might be, heir, was 
announced to him, and he immediately became a 
changed man ; from the slough of despondency 
he sprang up, radiant with expectancy, buoyant 
in spirit, and gladdened at heart ; and the Lady 
Gytha underwent an equal change, from tears 
and brooding to the delicious anticipation of 
fondling on her breast and presenting to her 
husband, as the outcome of their loves, an heir 
to his lands and dignities. 

It was a proud day for Earl Oswald when the 
women of his household brought him news of the 
birth of a male child, healthy and well-formed, 
with promise of developing into vigorous life, 
indeed, in the nurse's opinion, it was one of the 
most wonderful infants that ever came into the 
world, and he was further gratified to learn that 
the mother was doing well, whom he waited 
upon as soon as the feminine portion of the 
community, who ruled supreme at this interesting 
crisis, permitted, to congratulate her on the 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 23 

auspicious event. Nor did he confine himself to 
mere gratulations and expressions of rejoicing ; 
in demonstration of his gratitude to Heaven for 
his long-hoped-for heir, every day, for the succeed- 
ing week, he sat at the entrance door of his 
mansion and administered, with bountiful hand, 
food and stycas to all mendicant wayfarers, 
dispensed gifts to his servitors and slaves, and 
bestowed liberal donations on the Church and 
the monastic fraternities, with a stipulation in 
the latter case that they should pray for the 
welfare of the newly-born Christian child. 

The infant throve apace, and waxed more 
beautiful every day, with his blue Saxon eyes 
and fair flaxen hair, the darling of his mother, 
the cherished hope of his father, and the petted 
plaything of all the household. He had attained 
the mature age of twelve months, when a 
terrible calamity befel the family, a calamity, 
however, which was common enough in those 
days of turbulence, bloodshed, and war. It was 
the time when the Danish Vikings were most 
active in making landings on the British coasts, 
ravaging the country, and massacring the people 
who opposed them, and then sailing homeward 
with the spoils of the plundered villages and 



24 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

monasteries. Northumbria lay especially open 
to their incursions ; Ravenspurn, Flamborough, 
and Lindisfarne, were their principal landing 
places, and the Humber, the Tees, and the Tyne, 
their high roads into the interior. They had, 
indeed, established a permanent encampment on 
the headland of Flamborough, and intrenched 
themselves by enlarging a natural ravine, 
deepening it, and throwing up earthworks, so as 
to constitute it a formidable defensive barrier 
stretching across the peninsula, which still exists, 
and is popularly known as " Danes' Dyke." 

News reached Earl Oswald that a large fleet of 
vessels had arrived at Flamborough, and that the 
Danes, in great numbers, were marching with 
sword and firebrand across the Wolds, and in the 
direction of his home. The news was sent by 
the leading men of the district, who were 
gathering their vassals and slaves together to 
resist the invaders, and he was requested to come 
to their assistance with all the men he could 
muster. He lost no time in obeying the call, 
and after bidding an affectionate farewell to his 
wife, and exhorting her to great watchfulness and 
care over little Oswy, who, said he, is the only 
hope for the continuance of my race in case of 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 25 

any mischance to myself — he went forth at the 
head of his retainers, and joined the army, which 
had assembled in the neighbourhood of Driffield, 
to check the progress of the enemy. 

About a couple of miles to the north-east of 
Driffield, there was a valley running east and 
west, along which it was anticipated the foe 
would come, and here the Saxons decided to 
await their approach. They took up their 
position on the southern slopes, and threw up 
some rough earthworks to protect their front, 
and, after lying there a couple of days, their 
scouts brought intelligence that the Danes were 
but a mile distant, and that in their track could 
be seen the flames of villages which they had 
fired in their march. Presently they made their 
appearance ; a vast host of fierce-looking warriors, 
who, on perceiving the Saxons, set up a wild 
barbarian shout, and clashed their weapons 
together as if eager for the conflict. The Saxons 
uttered a shout of defiance in response, but 
remained quietly behind their intrenchments, 
whilst the Danes rushed forward impetuously, 
and clambering up the slope, the battle began. 
The field was obstinately contested on both sides, 
the fight lasting the entire day, neither gaining 



26 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

any absolute advantage, the bravery being equal 
on both sides, and what the Saxons lacked in 
numbers was made up by the superiority of their 
position, and the shelter afforded by their earth- 
works. Great numbers of brave men fell on both 
sides, the Danes, from their exposed position, 
losing more than their antagonists, and when 
the darkness of night fell, separating the 
combatants, they deemed it expedient to retreat 
upon Flamborough. 

The following day the Saxons went over the 
field to succour the wounded and bury the dead. 
Among the former was found Earl Oswald, who 
was taken in charge by his retainers and 
conveyed to his home ; and the latter were 
buried, Saxon and Dane together, and tumuli 
raised over their bodies. Their grave-mounds 
may still be seen spread over two or three acres 
of ground, over-canopied by trees, and are 
popularly known by the name of "Danes' 
Graves," and the valley where the battle was 
fought still bears the name of " Danes' Dale." 

A speedy messenger was sent to inform Lady 
Gytha of what had befallen her husband, and it 
was with anguished heart that she received the 
mournful cavalcade which carried him, wounded 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 27 

and almost insensible, to his home. He lived two 
or three days, but in the end, despite the most 
skilful of leechery and the most assiduous 
nursing, he succumbed to the loss of blood he had 
sustained during the night he lay on the field. 
In his dying moments he again besought his wife 
to protect and bring up in godly fashion his 
infant heir ; and she, with heartbroken sobbing, 
entreated him to have no apprehensions on that 
head, as now she would have nothing to live for 
but that one sole purpose. And the Earl closed 
his eyes in death, and w T as buried in the little 
wooden church hard by, which had been built by 
his grandfather — buried with all the pomp 
befitting his rank ; and the Lady Gytha returned 
to her mansion to grieve over her loss, devote 
herself to the instruction of her beloved child, 
and look after the interests of his estates. 

It chanced one day that the widowed lady and 
her orphan child were disporting themselves on 
the grass-plot in front of the house, when a 
withered old crone came up and implored 
charity. The Lady Gytha, who was ever 
beneficent to the poor, sent into the house for 
some victuals, wmich she gave to the old woman, 
bidding her sit under the shade of a tree and eat 



28 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

thereof, condoled with her under her infirmities, 
and supplemented her gift of food with a few 
coins. Whilst she was conversing with the 
woman, the little Oswy was running about after 
some ducks, and, chasing them to the edge of a 
pond, fell in, but was immediately rescued. At 
the same moment a dog that was chained up 
near by gave two prolonged howls, which 
attracted the attention of the stranger, who, after 
musing awhile, said, " Lady ! you have been very 
kind in your largesses to me, whom you know 
not, and I can only repay you by a warning, 
which I pray you to take heed of. I am an old 
woman, and have lived long in this world, not 
without learning somewhat that is hidden to 
others. I have studied omens and forebodings, 
and have acquired the power of predicting the 
future from signs of the present. Know then, 
lady, that I can foresee from the mishap of your 
little son, and the language of the dog, that he 
will undergo great peril from water, and that this 
will happen, unless prevented by fit precaution, 
in his second year, as is indicated by the two 
howls of the dog ; " and, having said this, she 
hobbled off, leaning on her walking-staff, without 
leaving time for reply. 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 29 

Lady Gytha, although she did not place much 
credence in the prediction of the old woman, was 
imbued, to some extent, with the superstitions 
and credulities of the age, and she summoned 
into her presence an astrologer, requesting him 
to cast the nativity of the child. He noted 
down the time and particulars of his birth, and 
promised a reply within the week. After a few 
days' absence he returned, and appeared before 
Lady Gytha with a clouded brow, she receiving 
him with a tremor of anxiety. " What do the 
stars reveal ? " enquired she. " Are the tidings 
good or evil ? " " Lady," replied he, " I have 
calculated the star of his nativity, and sorry am 
I to tell that it augurs evil rather than good. 
A great peril awaits the child, on the fourth day 
of the third moon after his second birthday. It 
is recorded in the starry volume that on that 
occasion he will perish by drowning." 

" Oh, say not so, wise sir. It would kill me as 
well. Are you assured that this fate is 
inevitable ? " 

" Fate, lady, is inevitable ; but there is one 
planet which presents a disturbing element in his 
horoscope, and it is possible that this fate may 
have been miscalculated, and that, through the 



30 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

influence of the planet, the threatening may be 
averted ; and it will become you that, at the 
date indicated, you should take all possible pre- 
caution, in order that he should not be brought 
into the neighbourhood of water of any kind." 

The astrologer, having been rewarded gene- 
rously for his services, and assured that all due 
precautions should be taken, he departed, 
murmuring to himself, " Fate is fate, and it 
cannot be averted." 

The Lady Gytha's whole existence was now 
absorbed in that of her child. He was scarcely 
ever out of her reach and sight, she watched over 
him with more than maternal care, if that were 
possible, and he continued to blossom out, with 
the promise of becoming everything she could wish 
— her support, her comfort, and the pride of her 
after-life. But these prospects of the future were 
overshadowed by a cloud — an anxious foreboding 
of what might happen on the fourth day of the 
third moon of his second year, which the stars 
marked with a doubtful and perhaps fatal prog- 
nostic. Could he but pass that dangerous point 
of life, the lowering cloud would dissolve into 
thin air, and for the future might be anticipated 
the glad sunshine of existence. 



THE BOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 31 

The fatal day came nearer and nearer. He 
had passed his second birthday, and the mother 
had meditated often and often on the means 
whereby he should be delivered from the threat- 
ening evil. It was plainly revealed to her that 
the danger arose from water, and she reasoned 
that if she could place him out of the neighbour- 
hood of river, pools, or springs, the evil might be 
turned aside and the augury baffled. When 
thinking the matter over, there suddenly rose up 
before her mind's eye the steep slopes of Otten- 
berg, the Cleveland hill, about which she had 
often clambered and gambolled when a child, 
and it struck her that if she could convey young 
Oswy to the summit, he would be removed so far 
away from any running or standing stream, or 
pool of water, that there could be no possibility 
of the fulfilment of the prediction, and she 
resolved upon taking him thither. 

Accordingly she proceeded to her father's 
house at its base, and on the summer's night 
preceding the fateful day, clomb the side of the 
hill with her child in her arms. She arrived at 
the summit as the sun was rising from the sea 
on the eastern horizon, and lighting up the 
glorious panorama visible from that elevated 



32 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

position. She partook of some refreshment 
which she had brought with her, and, although 
she felt no fatigue in making the ascent, owing to 
her anxiety, now that she had reached what she 
deemed a place of security, nature began to give 
way, and a sense of exhaustion to oppress her. 
She sat there, with her child clasped in her arms, 
as the sun rose higher in the heavens, and darted 
forth its heated rays upon her unsheltered head. 
Under its influence she began to feel drowsy, but 
battled with the feeling, determined not to lose 
her hold of the child until the day had passed. 
At length, however, she unconsciously and 
insensibly succumbed, and fell asleep, sinking on 
the turf and relaxing her grasp. The young Oswy 
disengaged himself, and wandered away, plucking 
the wild flowers, and looking with infant delight 
at the gulls winging their flight over the sea. 

An hour or two elapsed, and the Lady Gytha 
awoke. At first she could scarcely understand 
where she was, but in a few T minutes she came to 
full consciousness, and was startled to find that 
her child was not with her. She sprang up, 
called him by name, but elicited no response, and 
she feared he had fallen down the side of the hill. 
With beating heart she sought around, and on 



THE DOOMED HEIR OF OSMOTHERLEY. 33 

turning a projecting shoulder of the hill was 
agonised to perceive the object of her search 
lying with his face in a stream of water that was 
issuing from a fissure, and, on taking him up, 
found life to be extinct. The pen fails in 
attempting to depict her frantic grief, but it may 
be briefly stated, that she carried down the 
lifeless body, conveyed it to her home, and laid 
it beside its father in the little timber church. 
For her there was no further earthly joy, and 
fixing her thoughts on the only source of consola- 
tion, she founded a small religious house in the 
Vale of Mowbray, where she spent the few 
remaining years of her life in religious meditation 
and devotional exercises. She was buried beside 
her beloved child in the little church, around 
which a village grew up, which was called, in 
remembrance of the burial-place of Oswy and his 
mother — Osmotherley. 

According to the legend, the spring at the sum- 
mit of the hill gushed forth miraculously, in order 
that the decree of Fate should not be frustrated. 

" On the proud steep of Ottenberg still may be found 
The spring which rose his sad doom to complete ; 
And on its verge the villagers sit round, 



In wonder recording the fiat of Fate." 



1) 



Eadwine, the Royal Martyr. 

PIOUS and benevolent monk of 
Rome, passing one day through the 
slave market of that city, noticed a 
group of beautiful fair-haired boys and youths, 
who were exposed for sale. Compassionating 
their condition, he enquired whence they came. 
" They are Angles," was the reply. " They are 
beautiful enough to be angeli" said the monk. 
" What part of Anglia come they from ? " 
" Deira." " Then shall they be saved, cle ira, 
from the wrath of God. Who is their King ? " 
"^Ella." "Then," continued the monk, "shall 
Alleluias resound through their land," and he 
there and then determined to go thither as a 
missionary, and preach the Gospel to them, but 
before he could could complete his arrange- 
ments, he was raised to the Pontifical throne as 
Gregory I., afterwards called Gregory the Great. 
Incapable, therefore, of going himself, he sent 
Augustine, with Paulinus and other monks, as 



E AD WINE, THE ROYAL MARTYR. 35 

missionaries to the Saxons of Britain. Instead, 
however, of going to the kingdom of Deira, they 
landed in that of Kent, gained the ear of King 
Ethelberht, who embraced Christianity, and 
established the see of Canterbury, with Augus- 
tine as Bishop thereof. 

^Ella, the first king of Deira, died in the year 
588, leaving a son, his heir, then three years 
of age, and an elder daughter, Acca, married to 
Ethelfrid, King of Bernicia, the great kingdom 
of Northumbria being then divided into Bernicia 
and Deira, both extending from sea to sea, and 
separated by the river Tees. Taking advantage 
of his brother-in-law's tender age, Ethelfrid 
usurped the throne of Deira, and became King 
of the whole of Northumbria, and the boy 
Eadwine was taken into exile by his friends. 
For many years, until he grew up to manhood, 
he wandered about from one refuge to another, 
until at last he found a safe asylum at the court 
of Redwald, King of the East Angles. Ethelfrid 
sent a demand that he should be delivered up to 
him, and Redwald, in reply, said to the 
messenger, " Tell thy master that I have 
promised to protect him, and will not give him 
up at the dictate of any King, however powerful 



36 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

he may be." Eventually, however, persuaded by 
bribes, and terrified by threats, he agreed to 
deliver him up. Eadwine, hearing of this, 
wandered forth into the forest, and, " as he sate 
solitary under a tree, in dumps, musing what was 
best to be done, " a venerable stranger suddenly 
appeared before him, and said, " Noble Prince, 
thou knowest me not, but I come to tell thee 
that thou shalt be restored to thy kingdom, and 
moreover shall become Bretwalda of the Saxon 
Kings, if thou listenest but to those that shall be 
sent to thee, to teach the worship of the only 
true God." Eadwine, dazzled by the prospect, 
readily promised to do so, when the stranger 
placed his hand upon his head, saying, " Remem- 
ber that as a sign," and vanished as mysteriously 
as he had appeared. On his return to the palace, 
he found that, at the intercession of the Queen, 
Redwald had withdrawn from his engagement, 
and was now determined to protect the fugitive 
to the utmost of his power. Ethelfrid, in conse- 
quence, raised an army for the invasion of East 
Anglia, but was met by Redwald, and a desperate 
battle ensued on the banks of the river Idle, in 
which the usurper was defeated and slain, and 
Eadwine proclaimed King of Northumbria. He 



E AD WINE, THE ROYAL MARTYR. 37 

proved himself to be an able and vigorous ruler, 
adding the Isles of Man and Anglesea to his 
dominions, and extending his territories north- 
ward to the Forth, where he built a fortress, 
around which a town gradually grew up, which 
was called Edwin's burgh — the infant Edinburgh. 
He raised his kingdom to a height of power it 
had never before attained, and in the year 624, 
on the death of Redwald, he attained the dignity 
of Bretwalcla, or Supreme King of the Saxons, 
and President of the Heptarchian Witenagemot, 
whenever any such should be called together. 

His first wife, Quenborga, daughter of Ceorl, 
King of Mercia, having died, he sent Ambas- 
sadors to ask the hand of Ethelburga, daughter 
of Ethelberht, King of Kent, in marriage, but 
her brother, Eadberht, then on the throne, 
replied, " I cannot consent, for it is not meet that 
a Christian Princess should mate with a pagan." 
The Ambassadors returned to Northumbria, and 
extolled so highly the beauty and amiability 
of the Princess, that Eadwine determined to 
make her his Queen at any cost, and, after some 
further negotiation, agreed that she should enjoy 
her own religion, have priests to celebrate the 
rites thereof, and, moreover, that he would 



38 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

himself examine the grounds of the Christian 
faith, and if he found them superior to those of 
Woden, would renounce the latter and embrace 
the former. Accordingly the fair young Chris- 
tian came to Northumbria, accompanied by 
Paulinus and three or four preaching monks, and 
the marriage was celebrated with great splendour 
at York, the Pope sending her, on the occasion, 
a silver mirror and a gilt ivory comb, which 
latter is supposed to have been found near 
Whitby in 1872. 

Faithful to his stipulation, the King allowed 
his Queen the utmost freedom in religious 
matters, and permitted the monks to go forth 
throughout his realm, preaching and making 
proselytes. Still he himself adhered to the 
worship of Woden, in the great temple of 
Goodmandingham, over which Coifi presided as 
high priest, and which was contiguous to one of 
his palaces — that of Londesborough, near Market 
Weighton. About this time Cuichelm, King of 
Wessex, jealous of his ascendancy as Bretwalda, 
sent a messenger to assassinate him, who failed in 
his object, and Eadwine prepared to make war 
against Cuichelm for his dastardly conduct. 
Two days after this event his daughter Eanfleda 



E AD WINE, THE ROYAL MARTYR. 39 

was born, and, at the urgent request of the 
Queen and Paulinus, he permitted her to be 
baptised and dedicated to the service of the God 
of his Queen, as a thank-offering for his escape. 
He promised Paulinus also, that if his God were 
sufficiently potent to give him a victory over 
Cuichelm, he would, on his return, take into 
serious consideration the question of embracing 
Christianity and proclaiming it the religion of 
Northumbria. At the close of their conversation, 
Paulinus placed his hand on the King's head, and 
said, " You have been restored to your kingdom, 
you have extended its limits, and become the 
greatest of the Saxon kings of England — the 
Bretwalda — know you this sign ? " Eadwine 
replied that he did. "And," continued Paulinus, 
" there was another promise besides these of a 
secular nature, that teachers should be sent to 
instruct you in the true faith. Behold, here we 
are — I and my companions." This was more 
convincing to the King than any amount of 
logical argument, and he marched with confidence 
into Wessex, gained a decisive victory, and on his 
return summoned a gemot of nobles at his 
Londesborough Palace to discuss this great 
religious question. 



40 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

The chief speaker at the assembly was the 
high priest Coifi. " Know, King ! " said he, 
" that I have long been of opinion that our gods 
are worthless, and can do nothing for us, and I 
now perceive that the God of Paulinus is God 
alone, the creator of the world, and the true 
object of worship." The King acquiesced in his 
views, and the nobles, taking their cue from 
them, gave their assent to the deposition of 
Woden, and the substitution of Christ as the God 
of the Saxons. 

It was then determined that the great temple 
of Woden should be desecrated, and the King 
inquired who would dare to do it. " I," replied 
Coifi, " I have spent my life hitherto in minis- 
tering at the altar of a false and impotent god, 
and it is fitting that I should overturn that 
altar." A day was fixed for the purpose, and 
then the King and his nobles, followed by a 
crowd of people, proceeded from Londesborough 
to Goodmandingham, and in the midst Coifi, 
mounted on a war steed and brandishing a lance 
in his hand. As the priests of Woden were only 
permitted to ride mares, and not to bear arms of 
any kind, the people gazed upon him with 
superstitious horror, expecting that either the 



E AD WINE, THE ROYAL MARTYR. 41 

earth would open and swallow him, or a thunder- 
bolt descend from the sky and strike him dead ; but 
neither occurred, and the sun shone as serenely as 
if no such monstrous act of impiety were taking 
place. Without hesitation Coifi rode boldly 
into the temple, and, poising his lance, hurled it 
at the idol, upon which the people without, not 
daring to enter, fearing lest the temple should 
fall and bury them in its ruins, set up a loud 
yell of horror, and flung themselves down on the 
sward, but when they beheld the lance quivering 
in the side of the image and the priest calmly 
riding out, without the slightest manifestation of 
wrath on the part of the outraged god — neither 
thunder, lightning, nor earthquake — they began 
to think that Woden was no god, and that he 
whom Paulinus proclaimed was a God indeed, 
and the issue was that the King and his Court 
were baptised, and then the common people, 
10,000 having undergone the rite in the river 
Swale in one day, going into the river in batches, 
whilst Paulinus blessed the water. A wooden 
church was erected in York, which was replaced 
by one of stone, commenced by Eadwine and 
completed by King Oswald — the precursor of the 
present majestic York Minster, and Paulinus 



42 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

was constituted Bishop of the See, which com- 
prehended the whole of England northward of 
the Humber and the Mersey. In 634, Pope 
Honorius sent him a pallium, which raised him to 
the dignity of an Archbishop. 

At that time the kingdom of Mercia was ruled 
by a ferocious old pagan — Penda — who made a 
vow to extirpate Christianity from the island, 
and entered into an alliance with Cadwallon, a 
Welsh King, for the invasion of Northumbria. 
Eadwine encountered them at Heathfield, near 
Doncaster, and a sanguinary battle ensued, which 
proved most disastrous to the hitherto victorious 
Northumbrians. Eadwine and his son Osfrid 
were slain in the fight, and another son, Eanfrid, 
was murdered after the battle. The victors then 
ravaged the country, burning and plundering 
the houses, and slaughtering the people without 
regard to sex or age. Cadwallon remained in 
Northumbria, assuming the government, and 
ruling the people with great severity and cruelty, 
until he was slain in battle by Oswald, whilst 
Penda marched into East Anglia, which had 
become Christian, subdued it, and then took 
upon himself the title of Bretwalda. Thus fell 
the great and glorious Eadwine, the victor of 



E AD WINE, THE ROYAL MARTYR. 43 

many fights, the Bretwalda of England, the first 
Christian King of the North, and the proto- 
martyr of Northumbria. His body was conveyed 
to Whitby for burial, and his head interred in 
the porch of his church at York. He was after- 
wards canonised, and a church in London and 
another at Breve, in Somersetshire, have been 
dedicated to St. Eadwine. The Queen, with her 
two surviving children, accompanied by Paulinus, 
fled to Kent. She founded a nunnery, and took 
the veil within its walls ; her children she sent to 
France, to be educated under the care of her 
cousin, King Dagobert, and after her death she 
was canonised. Paulinus became the third Bishop 
of Rochester. 




Siward, the Viceroy. 

ilCCOBDING to a Scandinavian legend, 
a young Danish lady went wandering 
into a forest, where she suddenly, 
when turning out of one glade into another, 
came face to face with a bear, who seized her and 
forcibly violated her. The result was the birth 
of a child, with shaggy ears, to whom was given 
the name of Barn. He married, and had a son, 
Siward, who came on a piratical excursion to 
England, and became Viceroy Earl of North- 
umbria, and this identity of Siward, son of Barn, 
with Siward the Earl, has been generally 
accepted by modern chroniclers, which may be 
attributed to the great obscurity which hangs 
over the history of this period. The fact is, 
that this legend does not pertain to Earl Siward 
at all, but to another Siward — Siward-Barn — 
who lived half-a-century afterwards, and was son 
of the Danish Jarl — Barn. Following the 
instincts of his race, he sailed from Denmark with 



SI WARD, THE VICEROY. 45 

a fleet, and after ravaging the Orkneys and the 
coasts of Scotland and Northumbria, passed up 
the Thames, and presented himself at the Court 
of Edward the Confessor, whose favour he gained 
by entering his service. He was rewarded with 
lands in Cumberland and Westmoreland, and in 
Holderness, Yorkshire, one of his manors there 
being called Barns-town, now Barmston, near 
Bridlington. After the conquest, he joined in 
the northern insurrection against William I., and 
was one of the companions of Hereward the 
Wake in the Isle of Ely, where he was captured, 
sent a prisoner into Normandy, and there died. 
He never had anything to do with the Earldom 
of Northumbria, which was held during his time 
by Tosti, Morkere, and Waltheof, the son of Earl 
Siward. 

Having disposed of this myth, it becomes us to 
give, as far as can be ascertained, the true 
ancestry of Siward. When the Saxon hep- 
tarchy, or octarchy, became consolidated into one 
kingdom, the realm of Northumbria, extending 
from the Humber to the Tweed, and sometimes 
to the Forth, which was the last to submit, was 
peopled by a brave and warlike people, sensitively 
tenacious of their independence, and of so 



46 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

turbulent a character, that it became necessary 
to place over them a Viceroy Earl of great 
vigour, determination, and military ability, to 
give it the semblance of semi-independence, but 
at the same time to be ready on the spot to nip 
incipient rebellion when in the bud. Such a 
Governor was found in Oswulf, son of Ealdred, 
Lord of Bamborough, who was nominated to the 
office by King Athelstane. He was succeeded 
by Waltheof, the Elder, who was followed by his 
son Ughtred, from whom the holders of not less 
than seven peerages claim descent. By ^Elgifu, 
daughter of King Ethelred II., he had issue — 
Eadulf, Gospatric, and JEldred. JEldred suc- 
ceeded as Earl of Bernicia, on the death of his 
uncle, Eadulf I., Earl of Northumbria ; and 
Siward, who was his son, appears to have been 
appointed, at the same time, Deputy-Earl of 
Deira. 

He was born towards the end of the tenth 
century, was a giant in stature, of Herculean 
strength, and of great courage, which he dis- 
played on many a field of battle. His life, indeed, 
appears to have been spent more in the battle- 
field than in the peaceful pursuits of government, 
the administration of justice, or the superintendence 



SI WARD, THE VICEROY. 47 

of his Yorkshire manors, of which Malton was 
the chief, granted to him for his military services, 
and it presents a succession of romantic episodes, 
in which the sword played the principal 
part. 

^Eldrecl, his father, died in 1038, and was 
succeeded in Bernicia by his brother, Eadulf II. 
Siward, however, claimed it as his hereditary right; 
and so matters remained until 1041, when Eadulf 
incurred the displeasure of King Hathacnut. 
This was the opportunity Siward had been 
longing for, and he hastened up to the King's 
Court, where, by his representations, he embit- 
tered the mind of the King still further against 
his uncle, and in the sequel was either ordered or 
permitted to put him to death. This was 
precisely what he wanted, and, without the least 
scruple of conscience or regard to kinship when 
his own aggrandisement was at issue, he 
proceeded to Bernicia and murdered his uncle 
in cold blood, assuming at the same time the 
government, and thus becoming Earl of North- 
umbria in its integrity. 

In the same year, 1041, the people of 
Worcester rose in insurrection against an 
unpopular tax, and the three great Earls, Siward 



48 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

of Northumbria, Leofric of Mercia, and Godwine 
of Kent, were directed to march thither to 
suppress it. This was done chiefly at the 
instigation of -ZElfric, Archbishop of York, who 
had caused their Bishop, Lyfric, to be deprived, 
and himself appointed in his room, to hold the 
see in commendam with York, but whom the 
clergy of Worcester refused to recognise. The 
Earls had no difficulty in suppressing the 
revolt — indeed the rebels scarcely made any 
stand against them ; but, with great barbarity, 
they slaughtered the people, plundered their 
habitations, burnt the city, and compelled 
them to accept ^Elfric as their Bishop. 

The following year Hathacnut died, and was 
succeeded by Eadwarde the Confessor, more fitted 
for the cowl than the crown, when the three 
Earls, the mightiest subjects of the realm, 
divided the administration of the kingdom 
amongst themselves ; Siward at this time held 
likewise the Earldoms of Huntingdon and 
Northampton, which were severed from North- 
umbria at his death. 

In 1051, Count Eustace of Boulogne, on his 
return from a visit to King Eadwarde, treated 
the people of Dover with great insolence, who 



SIWABD, THE VICEROY. 49 

fell upon him and his followers, and gave them 
a deservedly severe chastisement. Eustace 
demanded redress from the King, who com- 
manded Earl Godwine to punish the Dover 
people, who, finding that Eustace had been the 
aggressor, asked that they might be heard in 
their defence, to which the King would not 
listen ; then Godwine assumed a higher tone, 
and demanded the surrender of the Count to 
answer for his insolence. This enraged the 
King, who summoned Siward and Leofric to 
render assistance against the hostile designs of 
Godwine. They came to Gloucester, where a 
compromise was effected ; but at a subsequent 
gemot, held in London, Godwine and his family 
were banished. 

The most creditable military effort of the 
many in which his sword had been drawn, and 
that which redounded the most to his glory, was 
the last of his life. In 1054, he was sent by 
King Eadwarde in command of an expedition 
into Scotland against the usurper, Macbeth, in 
favour of the young Prince, Malcolm Canmore, 
son of the murdered King Duncan. He was 
now the father of two sons by his first wife — 
-^Ethelfleda — Osbert, now approaching manhood, 



50 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

and Waltheof, a boy, some years younger. The 
former he took with him to Scotland, to initiate 
him in the then deemed glorious art of war ; and 
a brave young fellow he proved himself to be, a 
worthy scion of the old stock. Siward attacked 
Scotland by land and sea, met the usurper and 
defeated him in a pitched battle, after which he 
caused Malcolm to be proclaimed King. It is 
sometimes stated that Macbeth was slain in the 
battle, which was not the case, as he escaped and 
held out for three years, maintaining a desultory 
series of fights with Malcolm, but was eventually 
slain in 1057. His son Osbert fell in the battle, 
fighting bravely, and when the news was brought 
to him, he eagerly inquired if his wounds were in 
front, and when told they were, said that he 
could not but rejoice, such a death being worthy 
of one sprung from his loins. 

Shakspeare, not always true to history, in his 
tragedy of "Macbeth" thus gives the death of 
" Young Siward," as he calls Osbert : — He meets 
with Macbeth on the field, and, after some bandy- 
ing of words, they fight, and Macbeth falls, after 
which Osbert rushes into the thick of the fight, 
and falls himself. When Siward is told that all 
his son's wounds are in front, he exclaims — 



SI WARD, THE VICEROY. 51 

" Why, then, God's soldier is he ! 
Had I as many sons as I have hairs, 
I would not wish them to a fairer death : 
And so his knell is tolled.'' 

Prince Malcolm observes — 

" He's worth more sorrow, 
And that I'll spend for him." 

To which Si ward replies — 

" He's worth no more. 
They say he parted well, and paid his score, 
And so God be with him." 

Henry of Huntingdon, speaking of Siward's 
death, says — " And so he passed away, as he 
believed, to Valhalla, to rejoin the great warriors 
of his race w T ho had gone before," seeming to 
intimate, founded on the misconception of his 
identity with the Yiking Siward — Barn, that he 
died in the old Scandinavian faith of Woden, 
which was not true, as he lived and died a 
Christian, such as Christians were then. He 
is supposed to have founded a church in York, 
dedicated to St. Olaf, the martyred King of 
Norway, and connected with it a fraternity of 
monks, the name of which, in the reign of 
William II., was changed into that of St. .Mary 
the Virgin, and eventually became the famous 
and wealthy abbey of after-times, with a mitred 



52 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROM AFC E. 

abbot. The ruins may now be seen in the 
grounds of the Museum. 

He ruled his province with great firmness and 
some severity, necessary in his endeavours to 
curb the savage propensities of the people, and 
to establish a system of order and good govern- 
ment, and was bountiful to the Church, as some 
atonement, perhaps, for the crimes by which he 
rose to his high position. 

Shortly after his return from his Scottish 
expedition, he was stricken with dysentery, 
which rapidly grew worse, and he lay in his vice- 
regal mansion at York without hope of recovery. 
When he felt his last moments approaching 
he suddenly started up from his couch and 
exclaimed, " Let me not die the death of a cow ! 
If it be not my fate to die gloriously on the 
field of battle, as my brave boy, Osbert, has done, 
with all his wounds in front, at least let me die in 
the guise of a warrior. Don me my harness, 
place the helmet on my head, and gird my sword 
on my thigh. It were a shame and disgrace 
that I, who have faced death in so many fields, 
should die ignominiously in bed. Bring forth 
my battle-axe and shield, and place them by 
my side, that the ghosts of my warlike ancestry, 



SI WARD, THE VICEROY. 53 

who are looking down upon me now, may see me 
pass away from earth to join them in their 
everlasting home, with the semblance of the 
great warrior that I have been." And thus, 
seated on a chair, clothed in his armour, and 
supported in an upright posture by his attendants, 
he gave up the ghost, and was buried in his 
church of St. Olaf. 

His son, Waltheof, being too young for the 
government of so important a province, it was 
given to Tosti, son of Earl Godwine, and brother 
of Harold, the future King ; whilst Waltheof 
succeeded to the Earldoms of Huntingdon and 
Northampton, and eventually to that of North- 
umbria. 



Phases in the Life of a Political Martyr. 



N the year 1055, there was a funeral 
in the Church of St. Olaf, York. 
The corpse was conveyed through 
the streets of the city with great barbaric 
splendour and pomp. The procession, consisting 
of stalwart and bronzed warriors, was strikingly 
illustrative of the dead hero. Swords flashed in 
the sun ; armour, pikes, and battle-axes glittered ; 
and captured pennons, with other trophies of 
war, were borne along in triumph. Although 
all these warriors were mourners, the chief, and, 
indeed, the only one of the blood who followed, 
was a stripling of fifteen, young in years, but 
displaying muscular proportions, a military 
bearing, and features betokening valour, deter- 
mination of purpose, and invincible resolution in 
the accomplishment of his will. The warrior 
was laid in his tomb with all due ceremonial, the 
priests closed their books, the soldiers who had 
followed him to many a battlefield, gathered 



LIFE OF A POLITICAL MARTYR. 55 

round the open grave to take a last look at his 
coffin, and then dispersed, whilst the young 
mourner returned to the vice-regal castle, which 
now seemed so solitary and desolate without the 
sound of his father's voice. The defunct warrior 
was stout old Siward, the Northumbrian Earl, 
who had scorned " to die the death of a cow," and 
the mourner who followed his remains was 
his sole surviving son, Waltheof ; his elder son, 
Osbert, having been slain in battle. Eadward 
the Confessor was then King, and he, deeming 
Waltheof too young and inexperienced to rule 
so ungovernable a people as the Northumbrians, 
appointed Tosti, a younger son of Earl Godwine, 
and brother to Harold, afterwards King, to 
the Earldom. Tosti, however, ruled the people 
with such intolerable cruelty and oppression 
that the people of York broke into his mansion, 
plundered it, and murdered his house-carles ; 
they then assembled in a folkgemote and 
formally deposed him, electing Morkere of 
Mercia in his room. This was an illegal act, 
but the King, when he heard the circumstances 
of the case, confirmed it, as did also the Witan- 
Gemote of Westminster. Morkere constituted 
Osulf, Waltheof s uncle, his deputy in Bernicia, 



56 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

on whose death he was succeeded by his brother, 
Gospatric. 

John of Peterborough says that Waltheof 
was given the Earldoms of Huntingdon and 
Northampton at his father's death ; but as these 
were held by Tosti, the probability seems to 
be that he succeeded on the deposition of that 
Earl. Simeon of Durham says that he 
governed Bernicia as his father's deputy, but 
this seems improbable on account of his age, 
and is not confirmed by other authorities. On 
the accession of Harold, Tosti, in conjunction 
with Harold Hardrada, invaded Northumbria, 
but were defeated by Harold at Stamford 
Bridge. It was, however, the cause of the ruin 
of Harold, who, whilst banquetting at York 
in celebration of his victory, had news brought 
him that Duke William of Normandy had 
landed in Sussex, and he had to lead his army 
by forced marches to the south, arriving in the 
front of the fresh Norman troops footsore and 
wearied, and with the loss of many who had 
fallen out of the ranks during the march ; the 
result being his defeat and death, which might 
have been otherwise but for this fatal expedition 
to York. The brother Earls, Morkere of 



LIFE OF A POLITICAL MARTYR. 57 

Northumbria and Eadwine of Mercia, and 
Waltheof undertook to bring bodies of soldiers 
to his aid, but the former two stood aloof, from 
politic motives ; but Waltheof sent his contingent, 
if he were not present at the battle himself, 
which is uncertain. 

Duke William was now King of England. 
London, with the south and east, had submitted 
at once, but it cost him some efforts to 
subjugate the west, and still more the north. 
He did, however, eventually make himself master 
of Yorkshire and the northern counties, built 
a castle at York, and placed therein William 
Malet as military governor of the city. The 
year after his accession, he found it necessary to 
visit his Norman Dukedom, when, fearing to 
leave behind him men so powerful, and whom he 
suspected of disaffection, he courteously invited 
Earls Eadwine, Morkere, and Waltheof, to 
accompany him as guests, who complied with his 
request, although they were perfectly aware 
that they were going as hostages for the good 
behaviour of their people during his absence. 
Soon after their return, the three Earls, under 
Earl Gospatric, made a demonstration in the 
north in favour of Eadgar, the Atheling, but 



58 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

were defeated, and fled to the court of Malcolm, 
in Scotland. William sent a herald to demand 
the fugitives, but the King declined giving 
them up. 

In the year 1069, a Danish fleet of 240 vessels 
might be seen sailing up the Humber and 
Ouse. It was under the command of the Danish 
Princes Harold and Cnut, and had been joined at 
sea by a Scottish fleet under Gospatric and 
Waltheof. This formidable force landed near 
York, and entered the city amid the acclamations 
of the citizens. Malet was shut up in the Castle 
w^ith a body of Norman troops, and had 
boastingly written to the King that he wanted 
no help, for he could hold it till domesday. 
Around the Castle walls were several houses, 
which Malet ordered to be fired, that they might 
not afford shelter to the enemy, but the fire 
spread further than he intended, consuming the 
greater portion of the city, the Cathedral, and 
Archbishop Egbert's magnificent library. It 
was whilst the flames were rising up with terrific 
grandeur from the Cathedral towers, and the 
houses were all ablaze or in ashes, that the 
confederates made their grand attack, captured 
the citadel, and put the garrison to the sword, 



LIFE OF A POLITICAL MARTYR. 59 

Waltheof performed prodigies of valour. It is 
recorded of him in a Danish saga — " The great 
Earl, with mighty arm and sinewy breast, stood 
by the gate of York (Castle) as the Normans 
came forth, their heads falling to the earth in 
succession beneath his battle-axe." Waltheof 
was appointed Governor of York, the English 
and Scots garrisoning it, whilst the Danes, 
in their ships, occupied the Trent and Ouse, 
to check the advance of William and his 
army. 

It was not long before the King made his 
appearance before York and demanded its 
surrender. 

Waltheof replied, " Take it if you can, for 
assuredly I will not surrender it while life 
lasts." The King then bribed the Danes to 
withdraw, by a large sum of money and 
permission to ravage the northern coasts, and 
invested the city. A breach was made in the 
walls, and William of Malmesbury says — 
" Waltheof, a man of great muscular strength 
and courage, stood in the breach, and killed a 
great number of Normans who attempted to 
enter." He states, also, that a battle was fought 
outside the walls, and that Waltheof was the 



60 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

victor. The siege lasted six months, and the 
city was reduced at last by famine, after which 
the King committed the horrible crime of laying 
waste the country from York to Durham so 
effectually that for nine years neither spade nor 
plough was put in the ground, and the miserable 
survivors who escaped his sword were com 
pelled to eat the most loathsome food to sustain 
life. 

Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, and Waltheof 
fled to Scotland, but afterwards tendered their 
submission to the King, the latter in person, 
the other by proxy. Waltheof was a man of 
immense power and influence as Lord of Hallam- 
shire, Malton, and many another broad manor 
in Yorkshire and other counties, and was, besides, 
a skilful warrior and brave soldier, and the King, 
admiring his qualities, longed to win him over 
as his liege man. He therefore pardoned him, 
restored him to his Earldoms, and added thereto 
that of Northumbria, from which he had deposed 
Gospatric. Moreover, he gave him in marriage 
his niece, Judith, daughter of Eudes, Earl of 
Champagne, thinking thus to make sure of his 
loyalty. 

Soon after he entered upon his new Earldom 



LIFE OF A POLITICAL MARTYR. 61 

he committed a crime which is a blot upon 
his name, but which was considered justifiable 
in that age. A deadly feud existed between the 
descendants of Ughtred and those of one 
Thorbrand of York. Thorbrand was the enemy 
of the father of the second wife of Ughtred, 
who only obtained her hand by undertaking 
to kill him, but was murdered himself by 
Thorbrand. Earl Ealdred then, in retaliation, 
assassinated Thorbrand, and was in turn killed 
by Carl, son of Thorbrand, and a series of 
murders followed, which were completed by a 
wholesale massacre of the sons of Carl by 
Waltheof, when they were feasting at the house 
of their elder brother at Settrington, two only 
escaping. 

There was a great feast in the eastern counties 
to celebrate the marriage of Ralph, Earl of 
Suffolk, with Emma, daughter of Roger, son of 
William, Earl of Hereford, and Waltheof was 
one of the guests. This marriage had been 
prohibited by the King, who was now in 
Normandy, and advantage was taken of his 
absence to consummate it, which was, in the eye 
of the law, a treasonable act. After the dinner, 
the conversation turned upon the tyranny of 



62 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

King William, and, as the guests became heated 
with wine, they framed a plot to depose him, and 
place one of themselves as King in his room, the 
rest to be his proximate peers. Waltheof is said 
to have taken the oath on compulsion, but the 
following morning repented of having done so, 
and went to Archbishop Lanfrane for absolution, 
who advised him to go to the King, explain the 
matter, and implore his pardon. He had, 
however, foolishly mentioned it to his wife 
Judith, who, wishing to get rid of "the Saxon 
churl " and marry a Norman, sent an exaggerated 
account of the conspiracy to her uncle, with the 
intimation that her husband was most deeply 
implicated in it. Waltheof went to Normandy, 
revealed the plot to the King, and asked his 
forgiveness for the part he had been compelled 
to take in it, who assured him of pardon, and 
they returned to England together. 

The King, however, who had now for some time 
looked upon Waltheof as too powerful for a 
subject, thought this a favourable opportunity 
to get rid of him, and when he arrived in 
England, committed him to prison at Winchester. 
He then caused him to be arraigned at the 
Pentecostal gemote, on a charge of treasonable 



LIFE OF A POLITICAL MARTYR. 63 

conspiracy, and he was condemned to death. 
A few days after he was brought out into the 
market-place at Winchester, and there beheaded ; 
the first instance, says Kennett, of decapitation 
in England. Ingulphus says that Judith might 
have saved him, but she desired his death 
that she might marry again, and afterwards 
experienced feelings of remorse for her cruelty. 
She subsequently fell into disgrace with her 
uncle for refusing to marry one who was 
lame. Her name appears in Domesday Book 
as Lady of the Manors of Hallam, Sheffield, 
and Attercliffe. 

By his wife Judith he had issue, three 
daughters, co-heiresses — Matilda, who married 
first Simon de St. Liz, and secondly, David I., 
King of Scotland, thus conveying the Earldom of 
Huntingdon to the Scottish Royal Family ; 
Alice, who married Richard Fitz Gilbert, whose 
granddaughter and heiress married Richard Fitz 
Ooth, from whom was Robert Fitz Ooth, who 
claimed the Earldom of Huntingdon on the 
failure of the Scottish male line, and who is 
generally supposed to be identical with the 
outlaw Robin Hood ; and Judith, who married 
first Ralph de Toney, secondly Robert, son of 



64 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Richard de Tonbridge, from whom descended the 
Barons and Earls Fitzwalter, the Earldom 
becoming extinct, and the Barony falling in 
abeyance in 1753, the latter being called out in 
1868, in the person of Sir Brook William 
Brydges, fifth Baronet of, County Kent. 



The Murderer's Bride. 




T was on a beautiful evening in June, 
when the thirteenth century was but 
a few years old, and when John wore 
the crown of England, that a girl of some twenty 
summers was seated in a vaulted room of a 
ruinous old Saxon castle, surrounded by her 
bower-maidens, chattering and laughing, and 
busily employed on some embroidery work. The 
castle stood on a slight eminence, some three or 
four miles from the sea-coast of Yorkshire, and 
commanding a glorious view of the uplands of 
Cleveland, the wide expanse of ocean, the only 
recently completed towers of St. Hilda's Abbey, 
as they stood proudly on the beetling cliff, 
and the clustering of fishermen's huts on the 
margin of the bay below, then called the village 
of Presteby, formerly Streoneshalh, and now 
Whitby. It had been built by the half-mythical 
Saxon noble, Wada, as a defence against the 
marauding Picts, who came over the border, and 



66 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

more particularly against the Danish Vikings, 
who were wont to land at Flarnborough, and 
harry the land. In the year 867, they had 
destroyed the Lady Hilda's monastery, and it lay 
in ruins until after the Conquest, when it was 
re-built and re-endowed by William de Percy, 
ancestor of the potent Earls of Northumberland, 
and about half a century before the period of our 
narrative, it had been again pillaged and the coun- 
try laid waste by a Norwegian fleet. But, amid all 
these storms, the old castle built by Wada held its 
own, although it now showed in its features the 
ravages of time and the marks of the batterings 
it had undergone from the hands of a succession 
of foes, in the shape of fallen towers, crumbling 
walls, and decayed battlements. After the 
Conquest, the castle and barony were granted by 
the King to Nigel Fossard, a soldier who had 
fought for him at Hastings, and from whose 
family it passed, after two or three generations, 
to Robert de Turnham, by marriage with 
Johanna, heiress of the Fossards. They were now 
dead, and slept side by side within the sacred 
precincts of St. Hilda, having left an only child — 
Isabel — as heiress, and now mistress of the ruined 
old fortress, and the domain of pasture and moor- 



THE MURDERER'S BRIDE. 67 

land lying round it ; the same fair girl whom we 
find seated at her embroidery frame. The apart- 
ment in which the youthful group were assembled 
was the Lady Isabel's bower, very different, 
however, from a modern boudoir, being of the 
usual Saxon type. The walls and vaulted roof 
were of roughly -hewn stone, with a low, stunted 
column in the centre, and rounded arches, slightly 
decorated with a zigzag ornamentation, and on 
one side was an unglazed opening to admit the 
light, more like a loophole than a window. On 
the walls, suspended from tenter-hooks, were 
arras, picturing the miracles of St. Hilda, which 
served to give some semblance of comfort and 
cheerfulness to the room ; and the other furniture 
consisted of a table, or board resting on two 
trestles, and half a dozen cross-legged stools. 

Sounds of merriment and laughter echoed from 
the roof, as the maidens plied their needles, the 
buoyancy of their youthful spirits, and the outlook 
into what appears like a fairyland of the future, 
imparting a sunshine which is the happy privilege 
of youth, but is denied to more mature age. Yet, 
in the midst of all this joyous mirth, Isabel 
occasionally sighed, as disquieting thoughts 
passed through her mind. She was left in an 



68 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

unprotected solitude, and although the good 
Abbot of St. Hilda's had been her father's friend, 
and had promised him on his death-bed to watch 
over her and aid her by his counsel, he could not 
supply the place of father and mother, of whom 
she had been bereft, or of sister or brother, a 
companionship she had never experienced. She 
had already begun to taste the cares and anxieties 
of her position, and looked forward with some 
degree of apprehension, having learnt that the 
King, as absolute lord of the soil of England, had 
the right and power to dispose of the hands of 
heiresses of any portion of that soil which was 
only held of him by baronial or knightly tenure. 

" The sun goes down apace," said Isabel, rising 
and going to look forth from the window, " fold 
up the altar-cloth, we shall have time to complete 
the embroidery before the obit of St. Hilda." She 
gazed out upon the sea, sparkling with the glitter 
of the setting sun, and looked upon the abbey 
tower on the cliff, still radiant with brightness— 
an out-post, as it seemed to her, of the realms of 
heaven, and she felt a peaceful calm steal over her 
mind. Suddenly her eyes gleamed with joy, and 
her heart began to throb with passionate gladness. 
These emotions were awakened by the sight of a 



THE MURDERERS BRIDE. 69 

youth of noble bearing, pacing with rapid steps 
the road leading to the castle. This youth was 
Jasper de Percy, a scion of the afterwards illus- 
trious house of that name. He had long been 
affianced to Isabel, with the consent and full 
approbation of their parents, and they loved each 
other dearly and passionately. It was not long 
ere he was ushered into her presence by the old 
seneschal of the castle, but with their soft 
whisperings we have nothing to do, save that we 
know they consisted of protestations of eternal 
love and anticipations of a happy future. Whilst 
they were together the sun went down, and, as 
the bell of compline rang out sweetly over the 
water, they knelt together and uttered their 
evening prayer to the Holy Virgin, after which he 
departed. 

" Pax vobiscum ! " said the Abbot, as he entered 
the room soon after, "how fares it with my 
daughter ? " She replied that she was well in health, 
but somewhat disquieted in soul, and told him 
what she had heard about the King having the 
disposal of the hands of heiresses, and asking him 
if it were so. He explained the law to her, and 
knowing and approving of her love for young Percy, 
expressed a hope that His Majesty would not inter- 



70 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

fere in her case, but, added he, "King John is a bad 
man, unscrupulous in his actions, and an arch- 
heretic, even to the defying of the Holy Father 
at Rome — the Vicegerent of God upon earth, 
saying that he will allow no foreign priest to 
meddle in his dominion." After some further 
conversation, Isabel knelt at his feet, confessed 
her little faults, received absolution, and the 
Abbot returned to St. Hilda's. So the days 
and weeks went on in their usual routine, with 
nothing to disturb their serenity, until at length 
a thunderbolt, as it were, fell suddenly in the 
midst of the little community, utterly destroying 
all their fond hopes of happiness. 

The scene now changes to Normandy. King 
Henry II. of England had four sons, of whom 
William, the eldest, d.v.p., and Richard, the 
second, succeeded, who d.s.p. The third, Geoffrey, 
married Constance, daughter and heiress of 
Conan le Petit, Duke of Bretagne and Earl of 
Richmond, and had issue, Arthur, who was heir 
to the throne of England on the death of his 
uncle Richard, but, being absent in Brittany, 
John, fourth son of Henry, usurped the throne, 
and when Philip of France espoused the cause of 
Arthur, he invaded France with an army, to 



THE MURDERERS BRIDE. 71 

maintain the position he had assumed, and with 
the intention of removing the obstacle to his legal 
right to the throne. He captured his nephew, 
after patching up a peace with King Philip, and 
sent him to Falaise, with instructions to Hubert 
de Burgh to put his eyes out. Hubert, however, 
compassionated the boy, and saved him from that 
fate, upon which King John removed Arthur 
from his custody, and had him taken to Rouen, 
and placed in safe keeping. The midnight bell at 
St. Ouen had rung out over the Norman city, 
and, saving that, all was still in its tortuous 
streets, excepting the footsteps of three persons 
going down to the river-side. They went along 
stealthily, one of them, a boy, with seeming 
reluctance, and who appeared to be expostulating 
with the two men who urged him along. " I tell 
thee, boy," said he who was evidently the chief 
of the company, " that thou shalt be Duke of 
Bretagne and Earl of Richmond, and we are but 
taking thee to a place of safety wherein to abide 
until these untoward matters that agitate the 
realm of France can be arranged." " But my 
crown, the crown of England, my inheritance!" 
commenced the boy as they arrived at the water's 
side, when the two men forced him into a boat 



72 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

and pushed it off upon the Seine, and it glided 
down the river beyond the confines of the city. 
The leader of the party was King John, and the 
other his esquire, an ill-favoured bully, with an 
evil cast of the eye, a Poictevin by birth, and 
called, in derision, Peter de Malo-lacu, afterwards 
softened down to Maulac, and eventually to De 
Mauley. He was one of the tools and evil 
counsellors of John, and was ever ready to 
commit any crime provided he were well paid for 
it. Their companion was the boy Prince, Arthur. 
The night was dreary and murky, and the wind 
wailed a mournful cadence through the trees, well 
befitting the contemplated deed of blood. The 
boat had passed some distance down the river, 
and Arthur, fearing some foul design, was 
imploring his uncle to be taken back to Rouen, 
when the Poictevin, in reply to a signal from the 
King, suddenly plunged his dagger up to the hilt 
in the boy's breast, and at the same moment 
seized him by the legs, and pitched him over the 
side of the boat into the river, to pass down to 
the sea with the ebbing tide. 

" 'Twas well done," said John to his companion 
in guilt, " that obstacle to our ambition is 
removed for ever ; and as for thee, Peter, thou 



THE MURDERERS BRIDE. 73 

shalt be great amongst the nobles of our realm. 
It will be hard if I cannot find an heiress 
lacking a husband, and thou shalt be a baron of 
England." 

Again are we among the merry hills and dales 
of Cleveland. The summer has passed away, the 
leaves of autumn have fallen, the fierce blasts of 
the wintry winds of North Yorkshire have toned 
down into the gentle gales of spring, and a glad 
sunshine pervades land and sea. But there is 
wailing and lamentation within the walls of 
Wada's old castle, and saddened hearts beneath 
the shadow of St. Hilda's tower. The marriage 
of Isabel and Jasper had been arranged, and 
nothing was wanting for its consummation but 
the sanction of the King. A messenger had been 
despatched to the Court of John to obtain his 
consent, but he replied that it could not be, as he 
had other views in regard to the heiress, and 
purposed, by giving her hand to a brave warrior 
of Poictou, to raise her to a dignity far above 
anything ever attained by the Turnhams or the 
Fossards ; in short, that he intended giving her 
in marriage to his friend and companion-in-arms, 
Peter de Maulac. Hence those tears and lamenta- 
tions, as there was no resisting the King's will. 



74 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

A few months, and there stood before the altar 
of St. Hilda, decorated with the embroidery from 
the deft fingers of Isabel and her bower-maidens, 
an ill-assorted couple. On the one side a 
forbidding-looking man, with a ferocious cast of 
countenance and an eye of ill omen ; on the other, 
a gentle, delicate girl, of symmetrical figure and 
beautifully chiselled features, but pale as a corpse, 
and with eyes swollen and bloodshot with weeping. 
Nevertheless, it mattered not, the mandate of the 
King must be obeyed, and they became man and 
wife. 

Peter de Mauley, as he now chose to style 
himself, thus became, by right of his wife, feudal 
lord of Isabel's demesnes, situated at Egton, 
Juby-Park-Houses, and Newbiggin, near Whitby; 
Mauley Cross, near Pickering ; Bainton, near 
Driffield; Ellerton, near Pocklington; and Seaton, 
near Hornsea ; but the King compelled him to 
pay for the livery of these estates a fine of 7,000 
marks. He built a new castle near the old one, 
and called it, from the beauty of the situation, 
Moult-grace, but which the people, in consequence 
of his oppression, transformed, by the change of 
a single letter, into Moult-grave, since then cor- 
rupted into Mulgrave. He was a firm adherent 



THE MURDERER'S BRIDE. 75 

of John in his troubles with the Pope and the 
Barons, and was rewarded for his services with 
other considerable grants of lands, the Sheriffdoms 
of Dorset and Somerset, and, under Henry III., 
with the Governorship of Sherborne Castle. He 
died in 1221, and the ill-fated Isabel pre-deceased 
him, whose body he buried in Meaux Abbey, near 
Beverley, giving with it a grant of land. 

They had a son — Peter — who succeeded, who 
was followed by six other Peters in unbroken 
succession, all of whom enjoyed the estates, 
excepting the seventh, who died v. p. The fourth 
was created a baron by writ of summons in 1295 ; 
but Peter the eighth, fourth in the barony, dying 
without issue in 1415, the dignity fell in abeyance 
between his sisters and co-heiresses — Constance, 
who married, first, William Fairfax, secondly, Sir 
John Bigot, and who succeeded to Moult-grave, 
and Elizabeth, who married George Salvin. The 
title was revived in 1838, as a barony by patent, 
in the person of the Hon. W. F. Spencer 
Ponsonby, third son of the Earl of Bessborough, 
a descendant, through females, of Elizabeth Salvin; 
but the old barony by writ still lies in abey- 
ance among the representatives of the above 
co-heiresses. 



76 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

The death of Prince Arthur is still shrouded in 
mystery, the English chroniclers giving different 
versions of it, and Shakspeare representing him 
as being killed by a fall from the walls of his 
prison when attempting to escape ; but the French 
historians, who are more likely to be correct, 
coincide in attributing it to the hand of Peter de 
Malo-lacu, in the presence of John, or even to 
that of the King himself. 



The Earldom of Wiltes. 

HE famous Yorkshire family of Le 
Scrope, or Scroop, is one of the most 
illustrious in the peerage roll of 
England ; not, however, for the number and 
dignity of their titles, which only amounted to 
five of lesser rank, two of which are extinct, one 
dormant, and two in abeyance, but, for the many 
eminent and influential men sprung from the 
race, who have distinguished themselves in the 
State, at the King's Council table, in the Church, 
at the Bar, on the battlefield, and in the walks 
of literature. During three centuries, from 
Edward II. to Charles I., there have been of the 
Scropes — two Earls, twenty Barons, one Baronet, 
one Archbishop, four Bishops, one Lord Chan- 
cellor, four Lord Treasurers, five Knights of the 
Garter, several Knights Banneret, many 
Wardens of the Scottish Marches, three immor- 
talised in the pages of Shakspeare, one, " Keen 
Lord Scrope," in the ballad of " Kinmont Willie," 
and another in the ballad of " Flodden Field." 



78 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

They were originally of Normandy, and in the 
reign of William L, Osborne Fitz-Richard, their 
first English ancestor, held several manors in 
the Western counties. The first mention of them 
in connection with Yorkshire is in 1287, when they 
held eight carucates of land at Bolton, where 
they built Bolton Castle.- They rose rapidly in 
importance, ramifying in various directions, 
mainly into two great branches, those of Masham 
and Bolton, subsequently having mansions and 
domains at Bolton Castle ; Clifton Castle, 
Masham ; Danby Hall, Middleham ; Upsall 
Castle, Thirsk ; Croft-on-the-Tees, Ellerton-upon- 
Swale, Spennithorne, and South Kilvington ; and 
are now represented by a junior branch, seated at 
Danby-super-Yore. 

Henry, seventh Baron Scrope, of Bolton, was 
one of the heroes of Flodden, whose valour is 
sung in the ballad of Flodden Field. John, 
eighth Baron, was implicated in the rebellion of 
the Pilgrimage of Grace, but escaped the death of 
a traitor. Henry, ninth Baron, had charge of 
Mary Queen of Scots, at Bolton. Henry, third 
Baron Scrope, of Masham, was executed for 
treason, as was also Richard Scrope, Archbishop 
of York. 



THE EARLDOM OF WILTES. 79 

The time in which Sir William Scrope, k.g., 
Earl of Wiltes, and King of the Isle of Man, 
lived, that of the reign of Richard II. , was one 
of the most eventful in the history of England. 
Richard, son of the Black Prince, was born in 
1367, and succeeded to the throne of his grand- 
father, Edward III., at ten years of age, in 1377, 
the government being vested in twelve . 
councillors, his uncles being excluded therefrom. 
He displayed signs of vigour and ability during 
the insurrection under Wat Tyler and Jack 
Straw, when he met the rebels in Smithfield, 
on which occasion the former was killed by Lord 
Mayor Walworth ;' and in his invasion of 
Scotland, in 1385, when he penetrated as far as 
Aberdeen, and burnt Edinburgh, Perth, and 
Dundee ; but afterwards he threw himself into 
the arms of favourites, which excited the 
jealousy of his uncles, when the Duke of 
Gloucester was chosen head of the Council, and 
the parliament, called " wonderful," summoned 
under his auspices, put two of his favourites to 
death, and confiscated the property of the rest. 
When he reached the age of twenty-two he threw 
off the trammels of guardianship, and for some 
time ruled his kingdom with justice, but he 



80 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

possessed not the necessary vigour to cope with 
the turbulent spirits by whom he was surrounded, 
and still permitted himself to be governed 
by favourites, of whom Sir William Scrope was 
one. 

Sir William might almost be said to be born 
a courtier. His father, Richard, first Baron of 
Bolton ; his uncle, Geoffrey, first Baron of 
Masham ; and his maternal uncle, Michael de la 
Pole, son of a Hull merchant, and created Earl of 
Suffolk by Richard II., were all foremost men 
about the Court in military, diplomatic, 
legislative, judicial, and other capacities. His 
father was a statesman of rare talent, and 
resigned his chancellorship in 1380, in conse- 
quence of the anger of the young King at bis 
protests against the lavish grants he made to his 
favourites. Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and De Vere, 
Duke of Ireland, with Brember, Mayor of 
London, and Tresilian, were the King's favourites 
in his early days, but in 1388, Gloucester and 
the confederated Barons attacked them, com- 
pelled the two former to take to flight, and put to 
death the two latter. After their dispersion, Sir 
William Scrope became one of the principal 
advisers and favourites of the King, who loaded 



THE EARLDOM OF WILTES. 81 

him with honours and wealth. He was consti- 
tuted Seneschal of Acquitaine in 1383 ; Governor 
of the town and castle of Cherbourg in 1385 ; 
and Governor of Queensborough Castle in the 
same year ; was appointed Vice-Chamberlain of 
the Household in 1393, and Lord Chamberlain in 
1395. He was sent as Ambassador to France to 
negotiate the marriage of the King, in 1395, 
and to treat for peace, in 1397. He was 
nominated Justicier of Chester, North Wales, 
and Flint, in 1397, and in the same year 
Surveyor of the Forests in Cheshire. In 1397, 
he was created Earl of Wiltes ; the following 
year had charge of the castle of Guisnes ; and in 
1399, was appointed guardian of the realm during 
the absence of the King in Ireland. He was a 
faithful servant and attached friend to his 
master, and laid down his life in his service. 

The causes of the deposition and death of 
Richard were his weak character and his 
obnoxious mode of government, through favourites 
and evil advisers, which were accelerated by the 
ambition and revenge of his cousin Henry, Duke 
of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of 
Lancaster. The Duke of Hereford had a quarrel 
with Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, each accusing 



82 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the other of treason, and the King consented that 
the matter should be decided by combat at 
Coventry, but when the lists were opened and 
the combatants mounted, lance in hand, ready to 
commence the fight, the King commanded them 
to desist, and arbitrarily condemned Norfolk to 
banishment from the realm for life, and Hereford 
for ten years, the latter being granted the 
privilege of taking possession, through his 
attorney, of any inheritances that might fall to 
him during his absence. Whilst he was abroad 
his father, the Duke of Lancaster, died, and the 
King, in violation of his promise, took possession 
of his widely-spread lands in Yorkshire and 
elsewhere, including Leeds, Kippax, Almondbury, 
and many another manor in the county. Henry, 
now Duke of Lancaster, had speedy intelligence 
of this from his attorney, and gathering a few 
followers together, took shipping for England, 
and landed at Ravenspurn, in Holderness, at the 
mouth of the Humber. His ostensible motive in 
coming to England, and perhaps his real 
intention, was simply to obtain possession of his 
inheritance, with, possibly, some vague ideas of 
vengeance for his banishment. But, as he passed 
through Yorkshire, he was joined by the Percies 



THE EARLDOM OF WILTES. 83 

and other powerful families, who welcomed him 
back to England, and the people flocked round 
his standard, so that when he approached London 
he found himself at the head of a considerable 
army, and then he threw off his disguise, and 
proclaimed that he had come to deliver the 
kingdom from the evil advisers of the Crown. 
The King had gone to Ireland to subdue an 
insurrection, and had left the Earl of Wiltes 
as guardian of the realm, who, on hearing of the 
march of Lancaster towards London, fled, with 
others, to Bristol, hoping to join the King there 
on his return from Ireland. The Duke followed 
them thither, laid siege to the castle, " where at 
length," says Walsingham, " William le Scrope, 
John Busby, and Henry Grene, were taken 
prisoners, and they were forthwith, on the 
morrow, beheaded, at the outcry of the populace." 
The Duke had now fully resolved upon striking 
for the Crown, although he was not the legitimate 
heir, even if Richard were removed, and it was 
his usurpation which gave rise to the subsequent 
War of the Roses. In furtherance of his project, 
he considered it desirable to win over the citizens 
of London, and in order to conciliate those who 
were opposed to the favourites, and terrify those 



84 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

who were friendly to the King and his govern- 
ment, he sent thither the heads of Scrope, Busby, 
and Grene, in a basket, with a letter, in which he 
said — " I beg of you to let me know if you will 
be on my side or not, and I care not which, for I 
have people enough to fight all the world for one 
day. But take in good part the present I have 
sent you," etc. This produced the effect he 
wished for, as the Londoners at once espoused his 
cause. The King was soon after captured, sent 
to Pontefract Castle, and there murdered, after a 
formal deposition ; and Henry, with the consent 
of Parliament, assumed the crown. He called a 
Parliament together, who, in the first year of his 
reign, passed an Act of Attainder and Confisca- 
tion against the Earl of Wiltes and other of 
Richard's friends ; and it was assumed that the 
earldom thus became extinct, although legally it 
only became dormant, and presents one of the 
most curiously complicated and interesting cases 
that ever came before the Court of Heralds or 
the House of Lords, paralleled only, perhaps, 
in interest by the famous Scrope-Grosvenor 
heraldic dispute, between Sir Richard Scrope, the 
Earl's father, and Sir Robert Grosvenor, as to 
the right to bear " azure a bend or " on their 



THE EARLDOM OF WILTES. 85 

shields of arms, in which 400 witnesses of the 
highest rank appeared in evidence. 

The patent of the Earldom was thus made 
out : — " We, considering the probity, the wise 
and provident circumspection, and the illustrious- 
ness of manners and birth of our beloved and 
trusty William le Scrope, Chevalier, and willing 
deservedly to exalt him by the prerogative of 
honour, do create him in Parliament to be Earl 
of Wiltes ; and do invest him with the style, name, 
and honour of the place aforesaid, by the girding 
of the sword, to have to him and his heirs-male 
for ever. And in order that the Earl and his 
heirs aforesaid, for the decency of so great a name 
and honour, may be the better and the more 
honourably able to support the burdens incum- 
bent on the same, of our special grace we have 
given and granted, and by this charter confirm, 
to the Earl and his heirs aforesaid, £20 to be 
received every year out of the issues of the 
county of Wilton, by the hands of the sheriff 
of the county for ever." The patent was 
made out in this way, with remainder to his 
heirs-male, because, although married, he had no 
issue by whom it might descend lineally, and it 
would thus pass downward in the family through 



86 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

his collateral heirs, his brothers or their children. 
In 1859, Simon Thomas Scrope, of Danby, 
claimed the dormant Earldom, as heir-general of 
the grantee, on the ground that the attainder was 
invalid, and the case occupied the consideration 
of the House of Lords for ten years. In the first 
place, the question arose whether by " heirs- 
general," collateral descendants were meant, which 
was decided in the affirmative, and the claimant 
then proved to the satisfaction of the House that 
he was the heir-general. It was then contended 
that the attainder was invalid, as taking up arms 
in defence of a reigning Sovereign could not by 
any possibility be construed into treason ; but, on 
the other hand, it was argued that the attainder 
was legal, as it was an Act of the first 
Parliament called by Henry. But it was shown 
that before Henry's assumption of the crown, 
whilst the King was in captivity, he made grants 
of the Earl's lands and goods in the name of the 
King, using Richard's name and seal for the 
purpose, as he did also in issuing writs for the 
summoning of a new Parliament, which were 
ante-dated so as to appear to have been issued by 
the King, and this Parliament it was which 
passed the Act of the Attainder. " This, of 



THE EARLDOM OF WILTES. 87 

course," as Elsynge says, " was entirely illegal, 
for as the Earl had been illegally executed, with- 
out the pretence, or the possibility of a pretence, 
of any legal charge or lawful trial, there could be 
nothing to affect the legal rights which devolved 
upon his heirs, and a murder could hardly create 
a forfeiture." Further, it was shown that all 
the attainders of the Parliament of Henry were 
reversed by the first Parliament of Edward IV., 
therefore, even if the attainder had been perfectly 
legal, it became null and void by the subsequent 
reversal, and consequently the title was now 
lying dormant, and belonged to the heir-general 
of Sir William Scrope. This seems to be very 
simple, clear, and logical, but the Lords of the 
nineteenth century thought otherwise, and gave 
their decision that an Act of Parliament of 
the fourteenth century should be held to be 
valid, simply because it was an Act of Parliament, 
even although reversed by a subsequent Act, and 
that, consequently, the claim could not be admit- 
ted. The legitimate heir to the Earldom is, 
therefore, debarred from enjoying his title. But 
if the principle which operated adversely to his 
claim were to be set in motion retrospectively, 
many a proud coronet, even amongst those who 



88 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

voted against the claim, would fall to the 
ground. 

It has been said by some authorities that 
Sir William was not the son of Richard, first 
Baron Scrope of Bolton, but his nephew, 
and son of Henry, first Baron Scrope of 
Masham. 

He purchased, circa 1393, of William de 
Montacute, the sovereignty of the Isle of Man, 
the lord of the island at that time possessing 
the right of being crowned and styled king, 
although subject to the King of England. 

At the time of the execution of the Earl, his 
brother Richard was Archbishop of York, who is 
represented by Walsingham, as having been "a 
pious and devout man, incomparably learned, of 
singular integrity, and of a goodly and amiable 
personage," and was so grieved at the murder of 
his brother, and so exasperated against the 
usurper Bolingbroke, that he entered into 
conspiracy with the Earl of Northumberland, 
who had been alienated from the King, and had 
lost his son (Hotspur) at the battle of Shrewsbury, 
and with Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, son of the 
banished Earl, to dethrone King Henry. The 
standard of revolt, emblazoned with the five 



THE EARLDOM OF WILTES. 89 

wounds of Christ, was raised at Shipton, near 
York, around which 20,000 Yorkshiremen ranged 
themselves. The Archbishop imprudently made 
known his intentions too openly, by fixing papers 
to church doors, charging the King with usurpa- 
tion, perjury, sacrilege, and murder ; by sending 
circulars to other counties calling upon the 
people to take up arms for his dethronement ; 
and preaching three sermons denouncing him as 
apseudo King, and a traitor to his sovereign. The 
King, of course, soon heard of these proceedings, 
and sent Prince John, afterwards Duke of Bedford, 
and the Earl of Westmoreland, with 30,000 men, 
to put down the insurrection. They found the 
conspirators so securely entrenched in the forest 
of Galtres that they deemed it most prudent to 
resort to a stratagem. By means of flattery and 
false promises they allured the Archbishop from 
his shelter, and immediately arrested him for 
high treason, taking him first to Pontefract and 
then to Bishopthorpe. The King directed the 
famous Judge Gascoigne to try and sentence him, 
who refused, saying that a Peer must be tried by 
his Peers. Judge Fulthorpe, who was less 
scrupulous, was then appointed, and, with scarcely 
the formality of a trial, condemned him to death. 



90 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" Presently after, he was set upon an ill-favoured 
jade, his face towards its tail, and was carried 
with great scorn to a field hard by, where his 
head was stricken off by a fellow that did his 
office very ill, not being able to decapitate with 
less than five strokes." He was looked upon as 
a martyr by the people, who flocked in crowds to 
pray at his tomb and place of execution, which 
was forbidden by the King by proclamation, and 
the Pope excommunicated all who were concerned 
in his death. (See " The Loyal Martyr, 1722." 
Maydestone's " History of the Martyrdom of 
Archbishop Scrope." "A Narrative of the 
Decollation of Archbishop Scrope, by Thos. 
Gascoigne, d.d.," in MS. in the Bod. Lib. ; and 
" A Declaration of Archbishop Scrope against 
the Government of Henry IV." in Ang. Sec, 
vol. 2.) 




Black-faced Clifford. 

HOMAS, eighth Baron Clifford, is said 
by genealogists to have been born in 
1414, and that he was forty years of 
age when he fell at St. Alban's ; but he must 
have been nearer fifty than forty, as his son 
John, ninth Baron, was born in 1430, when 
he would be but sixteen years of age ; but 
marriages were contracted early then. His 
daughter, Elizabeth, was married at six years of 
age to Sir William Plumpton, who, dying soon 
after, she was re-married to his brother, her father 
stipulating that " they should not ligge together" 
until she had arrived at the age of eighteen. He 
was a portly, soldierly-looking figure, with a 
commanding presence, and a tone of voice 
calculated to ensure obedience to his commands. 
He had spent the greater part of his life, 
since the dawn of manhood, in the wars of 
France ; was greatly applauded for his capture 
of Pontoise by a clever stratagem, in 1438, and 



92 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

two years afterwards won equal admiration for 
the skill and bravery with which he defended 
it against the troops of King Charles "VII., and 
in 1445, he was entrusted with the high honour 
of escorting to England, Margaret of Anjou, the 
bride of Henry VI. 

John, his son, was somewhat different, 
possessing neither the martial figure, the open 
countenance, nor the genial manner of his father. 
His frame was more slenderly proportioned, his 
face presented rather a scowl than a smile, and 
his temperament inclined to a moroseness and 
brooding, which rendered him cruel in war 
and disagreeable amongst his private friends. 

It was a beautiful May morning in the year 
1455 ; the sun was shining brightly in the 
Vale of Craven. Breakfast was spread in the 
great hall of the castle of the Cliffords. On the 
dais at the upper end, sat, at the cross table, 
Thomas, Lord Clifford, and his wife, the Lady 
Joan, a daughter of Thomas, Lord Dacre, of 
Gillesland ; his son John, with his wife, Margaret, 
daughter of Henry Bromflete ; Baron Vesey; and 
the Prior of Bolton, who had come over on 
his mule to be present on this occasion. Down 
the centre of the hall stretched the long table of 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 93 

oaken planks resting on trestles, with benches on 
each side, on which were seated the knights 
of the fees of Skipton, esquires, the priests of 
the chapel, the secretary, the treasurer, the 
seneschal, the constable, and other of the higher 
officials of the castle, with others of meaner degree, 
all ranged higher or lower, above or below 
the salt, according to their rank. The 
tables were loaded with substantial fare — 
huge joints of beef, mutton, brawn, and 
venison ; saltfish, fresh herrings, and eels, with 
manchetts of bread in trenchers, interspersed 
with foaming flagons of ale and pewter tankards 
of sack. There was rudely cooked plenty, and 
keen appetites to overlook the deficiency of 
delicacies. 

The conversation on the dais turned upon the 
great topic of the day — the manifest aspiration of 
Richard, Duke of York, to the Crown of 
England, and the deposition of the imbecile 
and monkish-minded King Henry YI. Henry 
of Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, fourth son 
of Edward, had usurped the throne of his cousin, 
Richard II., and had been succeeded by his son, 
Henry Y., and his grandson, Henry YI., which 
usurpation gave rise to the desolating War of 



94 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the Roses, now breaking out, and it could not be 
denied that Richard had a better claim, as the 
representative, through Anne, his mother, of the 
Duke of Clarence, than Henry had, as representa- 
tive of the Duke of Lancaster. 

" The summons from the King arrived a week 
ago," said Lord Clifford in reply to the Prior, 
" and you will perceive, Holy Father, that I have 
lost no time in obeying it." 

" And a fine body of men you have gathered 
together," said the Prior, "the flower of 
Craven, whom it would be difficult to match 
for rude bravery and devotion to the will of their 
lord." 

" True," replied Clifford, " but we have opposed 
to us the men of the Vale of Mowbray, under 
the Duke of Norfolk, and the stout men-at-arms 
of Middleham, the followers of Warwick and 
Salisbury, all Yorkshiremen, not less obstinately 
brave than those of Craven, to say nothing of 
the Durham retainers of the Nevilles from Raby. 
But then we shall have the powerful assistance 
of the Percys, with their troops from Topcliffe 
and Leckonfield and Wressle, so that it must be 
a fierce and bloody contest. I count but little 
upon the men of the south and the west of 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 95 

England ; it will be the valour of the north which 
shall decide it." 

" Indeed, my lord," answered the Prior, " I 
foresee a long and bloody war, when such power- 
ful competitors are pitted against each other, 
and I mourn over the thousands of desolated 
homesteads in Merry England, as it is wont to 
be called ; merry, alas ! I fear not, for many a 
long day to come." 

" Have you had any further tidings, sir," 
inquire'd the younger Clifford, " of the movements 
of Richard of York ! " 

" Nothing," replied his father, " but that he 
has raised his standard on the borders of Wales, 
and is marching with his troops upon London, 
to demand justice upon Somerset ; and further, 
I have received information that Salisbury, 
Warwick, and Mowbray, are hastening to join 
him. But we must not waste more time ; 
we must perform a long march before sunset." 

A short service was held, and mass said in the 
chapel before the leaders, by the Prior, and 
the head priest of the chapel extemporised a 
religious service in the courtyard to the soldiers, 
who stood bareheaded, and listened devoutly. In 
those days the lower classes, however rough and 



96 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

barbarous they might be, implicitly believed 
what was told them by the priests, without 
any dogmatic scruples whatever, believing that 
the shriving of the priest or monk cleared off 
all old scores of sin, and they might, without 
compunction, commence a fresh score ; the sum 
and substance of their religion being to serve 
their feudal lord faithfully, accept the dogmas of 
the priest, and contribute according to their 
means to the money-chests of the Church and 
the monastery. 

There was but scant leave-taking ; the women 
of that time were so accustomed to parting with 
their husbands and sons for the French and 
Scottish wars, that they looked upon it as a 
matter of course. Outside the walls was a 
gathering of the wives, children, and sweethearts 
of the rank and file, with whom there were some 
tender leave-takings from those, so many of 
whom they would never more see, and who, 
despite their rough exterior, possessed within 
them hearts beating with affection and tender- 
ness towards the cheerers of their cottage 
firesides. 

The Royalists of Craven made but slow 
progress as they wended their way southward. 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 97 

It was not until after some ten days' marching 
along rough roads, entangled woods, the fording 
of rivers, and tramping through morasses, that 
Lord Clifford and the men of Craven found 
themselves on the borders of Hertfordshire. 
Here they met with a messenger from the King, 
with information that Henry and Somerset, 
with an army, small in number, but composed 
chiefly of nobles and knights, men of experience 
and valour, had come forth from London to 
meet the Yorkists, and would await Lord 
Clifford's arrival at Watford, bidding him to 
speed with all haste to that rendezvous. Lord 
Clifford and his son at this summons spurred on 
their chargers, leaving the troops to follow. 
They found the King occupying a house in 
the small town, and in conference with the Duke 
of Somerset, who had been nominated by the 
Queen to the Generalship-in-chief of the forces ; 
they were admitted to the presence at once, and 
were cordially received by Henry, Lord Clifford 
being high in his favour. The Yorkshire 
contingent entered the town soon after, with 
their banners displayed and trumpets sounding, 
and pitched their tents alongside those of the 
King's army. A council of war was called in the 

H 



98 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

evening, and Lord Clifford had the gratification 
of meeting there his uncle Henry, second Earl of 
Northumberland, now sixty years of age, King 
Henry V. having reversed the attainder of his 
grandfather, for the Shrewsbury and Bramham 
affairs, and restored him to the Percy estates and 
dignities, since which he had won distinction by 
sharing in the glory of Agincourt. At this 
council it was determined to march, on the follow- 
ing morning, upon St. Alban's, as it was 
ascertained from scouts that Richard of York, 
between whom and Somerset there was bitter 
enmity, was marching in that direction with an 
army he had gathered round him at Ludlow, 
which had been augmented on the road by 
the contingents of his sympathisers, and was 
supposed to outnumber the forces ranged under 
the Lancastrian banner. 

The following morning the tents around Wat- 
ford were struck by daylight ; the troops 
breakfasted, and, with banners flying and trum- 
pets sounding, they commenced their march 
towards St. Alban's. Sir Philip Wentworth 
carried the Royal standard ; and with the King, 
as a guard of honour, were Humphrey, Duke of 
Buckingham, and his son, Earl Stafford ; Henry 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 99 

Percy, Earl of Northumberland ; James Butler, 
Earl of Wiltshire ; Thomas, Lord Clifford ; and 
other nobles of the first rank. 

As the army approached St. Alban's, they 
perceived the uplands in front of them covered 
with armed men, moving rapidly along towards 
the old Roman city, in battle array. On seeing 
this, the Lancastrians halted, set up the Royal 
standard, with Lord Clifford and his Craven men 
to guard the barriers. The Duke of Bucking- 
ham was sent to demand of the Duke of York 
why he thus appeared before his Sovereign. 
Duke Richard replied that he was loyal to the 
King, sought only for justice upon Somerset, 
and would at once lay down his arms if he would 
surrender him to be dealt with according to 
the laws of the kingdom. The King, on 
receiving this message, displayed unwonted 
spirit, and replied that " he would as soon 
give up his crown as deliver up either 
Somerset or the meanest soldier in his camp 
to the mercy of the Yorkists." This answer 
was final, and the Red and the White 
Rose met for the first time in the struggle 
of battle. 

The Lancastrians had the advantage of 
i 



100 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

position, and were so certain of victory that 
Somerset issued orders that no quarter should be 
given to the Yorkists, but the latter had firearms 
of a rude description, which gave them a counter 
advantage. Clifford, however, kept them at bay 
bravely, and prevented them from coming to close 
conflict. Meanwhile, Warwick, with his northern 
warriors, entered the town from the other side, 
and fell upon the King's troops with such vigour 
that, as Hall says, "the 'King's army was profli- 
gate disposed, and all the chieftains of the field 
almost slain and brought to confusion." The 
barriers were at length burst, and York entered 
the town, and then in the streets were heard the 
shouts of " A Warwick ! a Warwick!" on the 
other side " A York ! a York ! " and in the midst 
the war cries of " King Henry ! a Somerset ! a 
Percy ! a Clifford ! " etc. , all intermingled with the 
clash of swords upon armour and shield ; the whir 
of arrows flying through the air ; the groans of 
wounded and dying men, and the screams of flying 
women ; whilst the market-place was strewn with 
the bodies of fallen men, and the streets flowed 
with blood. Shakspeare makes Clifford fall at 
the hand of the Duke of York. Warwick enters 
crying — 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 101 

" Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls ! 
And if thou do'st not hide thee from the bear 
Now when the angry trumpet sounds alarm 
And dead men's cries do fill the empty air, 
Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me ! 
Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland, 
Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms." 

York, however, interposes, and claims the right 
of fighting with him. 

" Clifford. — What seest thou in me, York 1 Why dost thou 
pause % 
York. — With thy brave bearing I should be in love, 

But that thou art so fast mine enemy. 
Clifford. — Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem, 

But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason. 

York. — So let it help me now against thy sword, 

As I in justice and true right express it ! 

Clifford. — My soul and body on the action both ! 

York. — A dreadful lay ! — address thee instantly. 

(They fight, and Clifford falls.) 
Clifford. — La fin couronne les ceuvres. (Dies.) 

York. — Thus w T ar hath given thee peace, for thou art still. 
Peace with his soul, Heaven, if it be Thy will." 

The slaughter of Lord Clifford at the hands of 
the Duke of York is the keynote to young 
Clifford's subsequent ruthless hatred of the House 
of York. Coming up to the body of his father, 
Shakspeare puts these words into his mouth — 

" Wast thou ordain'd, dear father, 
To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve 



102 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" The silvery livery of advised age, 
And in thy reverence, and thy chair-days thus 
To die in ruffian battle ? Even at this sight 
My heart is turn'd to stone ; and while 'tis mine 
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares : 
No more will I their babes ; tears virginal 
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire ; 
And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims, 
Shall, to my flaming wrath, be oil and flax. 
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity 
Meet I an infant of the house of York, 
Into as many gobbets will I cut it 
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did. 
In cruelty will I seek out my fame. 
Come thou new ruin of old Clifford's house. 

(Taking up the body.) 
As old .ZEneas did Anchises bear, 
So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders. 
But then ^neas bore a living load, 
Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine." 

Although the Lancastrians fought bravely, 
nothing could withstand the superior number of 
the Yorkists, combined, as it was, with the 
military skill and impetuous valour of the Earl of 
Warwick, and in a short space of time there lay 
dead the Duke of Somerset and the Earls of 
Northumberland and Stafford ; and the Duke of 
Buckingham and the Earl of Wiltshire and 
Ormond grievously wounded. Thus deprived of 
their chief leaders, the King being a mere cipher, 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 103 

the Lancastrians threw down their weapons and 
fled, Wentworth flinging down the Royal standard 
and spurring his horse in the direction of Suffolk. 
The poor King was captured ; but York treated 
him with great courtesy and kindness, conducted 
him to St. Alban's Abbey, where they prayed 
together at the shrine of the martyr, and then 
went together, victor and vanquished, to London. 

The Yorkists were now in the ascendant, but 
acted with great moderation. There were no 
executions and no attainders ; so Clifford succeeded 
to the title and kept the estates. The King was 
again attacked by his old malady, and again was 
Richard of York appointed Protector ; but Queen 
Margaret now began to exhibit her qualities, and 
to intrigue in politics. She was truly an able and 
brave woman, but vindictive and rash. She suc- 
ceeded in ousting York from the Protectorship, 
and took measures for crushing him effectually ; 
and again the flames of war broke out. 

Lord Clifford did not, under these circum- 
stances, sit at home brooding over his misfortunes 
and the bitterness of his hatred to the house of 
York. He was always on the alert, at London 
or elsewhere, attending on Councils of State or 
engaged in the field. He fought at Bloreheath, 



104 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

in 1459, and at Northampton, in 1460, on both of 
which occasions his party suffered a defeat ; but 
Margaret, nothing daunted, raised an army of 
18,000 men, and proceeded at their head into 
Yorkshire, in face of the frosts and snows of the 
December of 1460. The Duke of York, with a 
small army of 5,000 men, went from London and 
threw himself into Sandal Castle, by Wakefield, 
there to await the arrival of his son Edward, Earl 
of March, who was mustering forces in the Welsh 
Marches. The Queen came with her army upon 
Wakefield Green, with the Duke of Somerset, son 
of the slain Duke, in chief command, and Clifford 
and Wiltshire, son of the Earl who fell at St. 
Albans, in command of ambuscades, one on each 
side. Then, aware of her numerical superiority, 
she appeared before Sandal, and summoned the 
Duke to come forth and fight her. " What, are 
you afraid of encountering an army led by a 
woman ? Cowardly poltroon ! can you be fit to 
wear the crown of England, who shut yourself up 
in a castle against a woman ? " York called a 
council of war, and was earnestly dissuaded against 
running the hazard of a battle before the arrival 
of his son ; but, taunted by the jeers of the Queen, 
he felt that his honour was concerned in fighting 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 105 

at once, despite the numerical odds, and forth he 
went with his small army, not one-third that of 
the Queen. 

The Duke sallied forth and met Somerset, with 
a comparatively small force, on Wakefield Green, 
whom he attacked with great vigour, antici- 
pating, with his better-disciplined men, an easy 
victory ; but the ambuscades under Clifford and 
Wiltshire came out upon his flanks, whilst a 
contingent of Northern Borderers attacked his 
rear, and thus, completely surrounded, his small 
force succumbed, the White Rose drooped, and 
the Red, for the first time, was triumphant. 
This battle brought to an end the ambitious 
aspirations of Richard of York. He was one of 
the first to fall, and with him Sir Thomas 
Neville, Lord Salisbury's son, and Lord Harring- 
ton, the husband of Katherine Neville, his 
daughter. Lord Salisbury himself was wounded, 
but not sufficiently to prevent his galloping off 
from the scene. Clifford however, followed in 
hot pursuit, captured, and sent him to Pontefract 
Castle, where he was at once beheaded. 

Previously, however, to his pursuit of the 
father, Clifford was guilty of that dastardly act 
upon his son, the Earl of Rutland, which has 



106 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

stamped his name with infamy, and has given 
significance to his sobriquet of " Black-faced 
Clifford." The Duke of York had with him, in 
Sandal Castle, his family, including the youthful 
Earl of Rutland. Boy-like, he must needs go and 
see the battle, and nothing could dissuade him. " I 
will go," said he, "and see my father kill the 
cruel Queen ; and when I am a man I will go 
and fight, and kill his enemies too." " A battle 
is not a place, Lord Edmund," replied his tutor 
and chaplain, Sir Robert Aspall, " for boys. A 
stray arrow might kill you." " Think not, sir 
priest," replied the brave boy, "that a son of 
Richard 'of York is afraid of an arrow ! Stay 
under shelter of these walls, like craven priest, 
if you will ; I shall go and see the deeds of 
men who are men ! " Seeing that nothing could 
turn the boy from his purpose, his tutor resolved 
to go with him to keep him out of harm's way, 
nothing loth himself to witness the conflict of 
arms. When the battle was over, and the 
vanquished flying, Sir Robert led his charge 
away towards Sandal. They had not proceeded 
far, when they encountered a steel-clad warrior 
on horseback, with blood dropping from his 
sword. Perceiving from his apparel that he was 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 107 

a youth of distinction, the warrior dismounted, 
and, holding his horse by the reins, inquired who 
he was. " Then," as Hall says, " the young 
gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak, 
but kneeled on his knees, imploring mercy and 
desiring grace, both with holding up his hands 
and making dolorous countenance, for his speech 
was gone for fear. ' Save him,' said his chaplain, 
' for he is a Prince's son, and peradventure may 
do you good hereafter.' With that word Lord 
Clifford marked him, and said, ' By God's blood ! 
thy father slew mine, and so will I do to thee 
and all thy kin,' and with that word, struck 
the Earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade 
the chaplain bear the Earl's mother and brother 
word what he had done, and said, adding, ' By 
this act, Lord Clifford was accompted a tyrant 
and no gentleman.' " 

Not satisfied with this cowardly act of vindic- 
tiveness, Lord Clifford resolved to carry his 
vengeful hatred on, by insulting the dead. He 
returned to the field, now strewn with corpses, 
sought for, and found that of the Duke of York, 
and cutting off his head, stuck it upon a lance 
and carried it, as the most acceptable trophy, to 
the tent of the Queen, who received it with 



108 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

ill-timed merriment and jest. She made a paper 
crown and placed it on the head, with an 
inscription — " This is he who would have been 
King of England," and gave directions for it to 
be conveyed, along with that of Salisbury, to 
York, and placed over one of the gates, adding, 
" Leave room for the head of my Lord of 
Warwick, for it shall soon bear them com- 
pany ! " 

Queen Margaret, flushed with her victory, 
marched towards London, but met with the Earl 
of Warwick, in February, 1461, at St. Albans, 
and there defeated him, after which the poor 
captive King was released and brought to his 
Queen in Lord Clifford's tent. But Edward, the 
quondam Earl of March, now Duke of York, had 
come up and joined Warwick, who, together, 
entered London and were welcomed by the citizens, 
who favoured the house of York. Margaret, fear- 
ing to meet their united forces, returned north- 
ward, her strongholds and most devoted friends 
being in the northern counties, especially on the 
Scottish borders, whither she was followed by 
Duke Edward. She had come to York, and lay 
there with 60,000 men, when she heard that York 
and Warwick had reached Pontefract with an 



BLACK-FACED CLIFFORD. 109 

army of 40,000 men. Anxious to prevent the 
passage of the Aire by the enemy, she moved to 
Towton, some eight miles off York, and there was 
fought the memorable and decisive battle which 
placed the crown on the head of Edward IV. 
The Lancastrians had seized Ferrybridge under 
Lord Fitzwalter, and Clifford, as courageous as 
he was cruel, undertook to dislodge him, which he 
accomplished. But Lord Falconbridge crossed 
the Aire three miles higher, at Castleford, and 
attacked Clifford in the flank with a superior force. 
Clifford fled towards the Queen's camp, and when 
he arrived at Dittingdale, two miles off Towton, 
feeling thirsty after his exertions, he removed his 
gorget and stooped to drink at a streamlet, when 
an arrow struck him in the throat, and the 
murderer of Rutland and insulter of the dead 
Richard of York fell to rise no more. 




The Shepherd Lord. 

OR ever memorable in the annals of 
England will be Palm Sunday in the 
year 1461, and equally so the little 
hamlet of Towton, by Tadcaster. There and 
then was fought, in a blinding snowstorm, what 
Camden calls "the English Pharsalia," the 
greatest battle hitherto fought on English soil, 
where Englishman met Englishman, and kinsman 
kinsman, in deadly conflict, and in which quarter 
was neither asked nor given. The conflict lasted 
ten hours, and the pursuit of the fugitives was 
continued until the middle of Monday. 60,000 
Lancastrians were met by 40,000 Yorkists, 
and 36,000 corpses and dying men kiy that 
Sunday night on the snow of the fields, roads, 
and hillsides, whilst the river and streamlets 
ran with torrents of blood, and the snow became 
encrimsoned as it fell. The fight inclined in 
favour of the Red Rose, under the command of 
the Duke of Somerset, although York and 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. Ill 

Warwick performed prodigies of valour with 
their smaller forces, and the day must have gone 
against the White Rose, when, towards evening, 
the banner of the Mowbrays was seen approach- 
ing, and the Duke of Norfolk came up with 
a body of fresh troops, who made a vigorous 
attack on the Lancastrians, which at once turned 
the scale, and changed what seemed to be a 
defeat into a decisive victory, which was virtually 
the deposition of Henry VI., and the elevation 
of Edward IV. to the throne — a transference 
of the crown from the House of Lancaster to 
that of York. 

The shades of evening were falling over the 
forest lands around Skipton, some week or 
ten days after the battle. The surrounding hills 
were covered with snow, and a fierce wind raged 
round the towers of the castle, whilst the boughs 
of the trees crashed against each other, and ever 
and anon a hugh branch, reft from the 
parent stem, was flung with fury to the 
earth. 

Within the castle, in a room overlooking the 
courtyard, sat the Lady Clifford, with her young 
children, two or three female attendants, and the 
chaplain of the household. It was very unlike a 



112 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

modern drawing-room, and, in these Sybarite 
days, would be looked upon as a very comfortless 
apartment ; yet was it a fair specimen of the 
drawing-room of the period. Instead of Ax- 
minster or Aubusson carpets, the floors were 
strewn with rushes ; instead of oil paintings from 
the hands of eminent masters, the walls were hung 
with tapestries of Arras, more to cover the rough 
nakedness of the stonework and exclude draughts 
than for aesthetic purposes ; the furniture of the 
room consisted of a table, two or three chairs, 
and a few stools of rough carpentry, not in 
mahogany or rosewood, but of the native oak, 
hewn out of the woodlands of the demesne. On 
the hearthstone blazed a fire of wood, sputtering 
as the sleet fell into it down the wide open 
chimney. There was no grate, fender, or fire- 
irons, but beside the hearth lay a heap of fresh 
wood, to be thrown on the fire as required ; 
and when the embers required stirring, a 
stick from the heap was used for that 
purpose. 

Lady Clifford sat in silence, brooding in 
thought over her absent husband, with an 
occasional heavy-drawn sigh ; the children were 
gambolling about the room in innocent uncon- 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 113 

sciousness of the perils to which their father was 
exposed ; the chaplain joined in their romps, and 
amused them by telling them tales of Fairyland 
and the good deeds of holy saints ; and the hand- 
maidens were sitting apart, plying their distaffs 
and spinning-wheels, and indulging in the usual 
gossip of an isolated castle and the surrounding 
village, but maintained it in an undertone, 
so as not to disturb the meditations of their 
lady. 

" What a fearful night it is," said Lady 
Clifford, as a terrific gust of wind came roaring 
round the towers of the castle, seeming almost to 
shake them to their foundations, stoutly as they 
were built. "It is terrible even here, sitting as 
we are under the protection of these strong 
walls ; what must it be to those who are exposed 
to its fury, camped, perchance, on some wild 
moor, and surrounded by enemies ? " 

At this moment a trumpet summons for 
admittance to the castle was heard ; and presently 
the seneschal entered the room, stating that 
a knight was without the gate with tidings of 
great importance. 

" Who is he ? " asked Lady Clifford. " Do you 

know him ? " 

i 



114 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" Yes, my lady, he is Sir John de Barnoldswick, 
who accompanied my lord, and I fear me he 
brings intelligence of evil import." 

" Admit him instantly, and bring him 
hither." 

The rattling of the chains of the drawbridge 
was heard, and the sound of opening the ponder- 
ous castle gates, followed by the tramping of 
a horse in the courtyard, and the heavy footsteps 
of a steel-clad warrior on the stone stairs, and a 
tall, martial-looking figure, but with melancholy 
gait and drooping head, entered the room 
and made a profound obeisance to the lady of 
the castle, but without speaking a word of 
salutation. 

" Whence comest thou, Sir Knight, and what 
are thy tidings ? " inquired Lady Clifford, in 
tremulous accents. 

" I come from the field of battle, lady, and my 
tidings are evil." 

" Let us hear them ; I am a soldier's wife, 
and ought not to shrink from calamitous 
intelligence," she replied, although her nervous 
trembling belied her utterance. 

" Know, then, lady, that a great and disastrous 
battle has been fought near Tadcaster, and the 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 115 

Lancastrian cause lost. I fought till the last 
under the Clifford banner ; saw many a brave 
fellow of the Vale of Craven fall around me, and 
barely escaped to bring the news hither." 

" And what of the King and the brave Queen 
Margaret ? " 

" Alas ! I know not ; they and the Prince 
of Wales were in York when the battle was 
fought. All I know is that Somerset and the 
King's troops were utterly defeated, and fled 
northward, with Warwick and the Duke of York 
in hot pursuit." 

" And what of my lord ? Fled he too ? 
He would never turn his back to the foes of his 
King.'.' 

" He did not, lady ; had he been present, 
the result might have been different. He was 
not in the engagement." 

" What mean you by ' not in the engagement ' ? 
Surely he, of all men, would not stand aloof on 
such an occasion ? " 

" Alas ! lady, I fear to tell you why." 

" Speak, man ! is he dead ? or why was he 
absent ? " 

"It is too true, lady, that he can no longer 
fight in defence of his King." 



116 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

' ' Then he is dead ! " cried Lady Clifford, in an 
agony of despair. 

" He fell, nry lady, on the eve of the battle, 
after a glorious act of valour, by a random shot. 
Heaven rest his soul ! " 

" Heaven help my poor children ! " cried Lady 
Clifford, and fell to the floor in a swoon, the 
mother's instinctive love for her offspring pre- 
vailing over her grief for her own loss. And 
truly, she had reason to fear for them. Her 
husband, " Black-faced Clifford," as he was 
called, had an inveterate hatred for the House of 
York ; he had murdered, in cold blood, the young 
Duke of Rutland, brother of Edward of York ; 
had cut off the head of Richard, Duke of York ; 
and had caused the Earl of Salisbury, father of 
Warwick, to be executed at Pontefract ; and 
it was tolerably certain that York, the future 
King, and Warwick, his General, would seek 
to take vengeance on the children of him who 
had committed those atrocities. 

The Dukes of York and Warwick marched 
triumphantly to York, and were submissively 
received by the authorities, and there they 
celebrated the festival of Easter with great 
splendour. Hastings, Stafford, and others had 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 117 

been made Knights-Bannerets on the field ; 
Devon and Wilts were decapitated by martial 
law, and their heads placed on the bar gate 
of York, whence those of Richard of York and 
the Earl of Salisbury, the fathers of York and 
Warwick, had been removed ; and, after settling 
affairs in the north, the victors marched to 
London, and were welcomed by the citizens with 
loud demonstrations of joy, the Londoners being 
staunch Yorkists. 

Lady Clifford prepared to meet her untoward 
fate, and took measures for the safety of her 
children. Her old friend, the venerable Prior of 
Bolton, who had made himself acquainted with all 
that had taken place since the battle of Towton, 
so far as could be learnt in that remote spot, 
mounted his mule and rode over to the Castle. 
He was received courteously and with dutiful 
reverence by Lady Clifford, and, moreover, with 
joy, as she wished to consult him, above 
all others, as to her future line of conduct. 

" I am at a loss, holy father, to think 
what I can do. I suppose there is 
no hope of retrieval on the part of Queen 
Margaret ? " 

" I am afraid not. The Queen is endeavouring 



118 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

to raise another 'army in the north, but I fear 
with little chance of success." 

" What, then, will be the effect upon the 
adherents of the House of Lancaster? I 
suppose executions, attainders, and confisca- 
tions ? " 

" Precisely so ; and Lord Clifford, one of the 
most bitter foes of the House of York, will 
certainly be included in the first list, his title 
extinguished, and his estates confiscated. " 

" And my poor children will thus lose all 
their inheritance ; but it is not that I dread this 
so much as the vengeance of the Duke — King 
now, I presume — and of the Earl of Warwick. 
I fear me that even if their lives are not 
sacrificed, they will be cast into dungeons, to 
languish out their lives." 

" Your apprehensions, my daughter, are, 
unfortunately, but too well-founded, and we must 
consult on some measures for their safety. You 
need not fear molestation until Edward has 
seated himself securely on the throne, and will 
be safer within the walls of this castle than 
elsewhere. But it will be wise to make pro- 
vision for removal to some secure retreat as soon 
as the Acts of Attainder have passed, and the 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 119 

King begins to take vengeance on his foes, for 
then Skipton will pass into other hands." 

" I bethink me of such a place," said Lady 
Clifford. " Your council is wise. I can go to 
the mansion of my father, Lord Vesci, on his 
Londesborough estates, near Market Weighton, 
where it will be possible to reside as far removed 
from the world as if out of the world. There I 
could bring up my children, without notice, until 
the cloud had passed over, or until a change in 
the wheel of fortune shall restore the House of 
Lancaster to the throne." 

After some further discussion, the Prior saw 
that this was the best plan that could be 
adopted ; and it was arranged that measures 
should be taken for departure at any moment, 
when there should be indications of the towers of 
Skipton becoming untenable, and, after a parting 
benediction, the reverend Prior mounted his 
mule, and returned home. 

King Edward lost no time in taking steps 
to paralyse effectually any further efforts on the 
part of the adherents of the rival House. He 
called together a Parliament, and one of the first 
measures laid before it was an Act of Attainder 
against all the nobles and men of rank who had 



120 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

appeared in arms against his legitimate claim to 
the crown, which, now that he had been success- 
ful, was deemed treason. The demesnes of John, 
Lord Clifford, extended for seventy miles, with an 
interval of ten, from Skipton into the heart of 
Westmoreland, with four castles — those of 
Brougham, Appleby, Brough, and Pendragon, 
besides that of Skipton. The Westmoreland 
estates, with the tenure Baronies of Yipont and 
Westmoreland, had been inherited by Bobert de 
Clifford, third baron, from his great-aunt, 
Isabella, daughter and co-heiress of the last male 
heir of the family of De Vipont. By the Act of 
Attainder all these fair lands and castles were 
reft away from the family, the Barony of de 
Clifford was declared to be extinct for ever, and 
all the estates, forests, moors, castles, tenements, 
mills, and goods escheated to the Crown. In the 
fourth of the reign, the castle, manor, and lord- 
ship of Skipton, and the manor of Morton were 
granted in tail male to Sir Edward Stanley, 
but in the fifteenth year were transferred to 
the King's brother, Bichard, Duke*of Gloucester, 
to hold till death. 

It is proverbial that bad news flies rapidly, and 
it was not long ere news arrived at Skipton and 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 121 

Bolton of the Act of Attainder. The Prior had 
come over to the castle to advise with Lady 
Clifford. " You must take your departure at 
once," said he. " The agents of the usurper will 
be here anon and take possession in the name of 
the King, and it is not at all improbable that 
they will have instructions to remove your 
children from your care, and immure them in 
some place of captivity, if nothing worse befalls 
them, as the offspring of one of the most deter- 
mined enemies of the House of York." 

" I have sent a confidential servant," she 
replied, " to Lord Yesci, my father, who sends 
word back that preparation shall be made for my 
reception at Londesborough." 

" Nothing remains, then," said the Prior, " but 
to secure your jewels and other portable articles 
of value, with such of the family papers as you 
may deem it wise to preserve, and to set off on 
your journey, w4th an escort sufficient for your 
protection, but not so large as to attract undue 
notice." 

Lady Clifford had left the castle in charge 
of the seneschal, to deliver it into the King's 
hands, and rode forth on a palfrey, disguised as a 
farmer's wife. She was accompanied by three or 



122 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

four horsemen in similar disguise, with whom the 
children rode, and was followed at some distance 
by some half-dozen servitors clad as peasants, but 
bearing concealed weapons for the purpose of 
defence, if needful, as it was probable that they 
might meet with disbanded soldiers, who might 
not be over scrupulous in waylaying and robbing- 
chance travellers. The party, as far as possible, 
went along by-ways, so as to escape observation, 
but these were sometimes so rough as to compel 
them to take the more beaten high roads, and, 
passing by Otley, Tadcaster, and York, arrived 
at Londesborough without any mishap or adven- 
ture of consequence. 

Londesborough is supposed to have been the 
Delgovitia of the Romans, and was seated at the 
foot of the road from Eboracum,* one branch 
going to the ferry over the Humber at Brough, 
and the other across Holderness to the seaport at 
Kavenspurn. It is presumed, also, that the 
Saxon king, Eadwine, had a palace here, and 
that within its walls he held his conference with 
Paulinus, which resulted in the demolition of the 
temple of Woden at Goodmandingham, two 
miles distant. The De Yescis had built a 
mansion here, and laid out a park with a noble 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 123 

avenue of trees, a mile in length, in which Lady 
Clifford had played when a child, Londesborough 
having been her birthplace. The estates passed 
at the death of Henry de Bromflete, in 1466, to 
his daughter, Margaret, and through her to the 
De Cliffords, in whose possession they 
remained until the death, without issue male, 
of Henry V., and last Earl of Cumberland, when 
they passed, by the marriage of his daughter and 
heiress, to the Earl of Burlington, of the Boyle 
family. The old mansion was taken down in 
1819, and the park divided into farms. 

It was with a feeling of melancholy satisfaction 
that Lady Clifford found herself in a species of 
security in her ancestral home, and she 
longed to ramble at will about the park and 
village, as sne had been wont to do in bygone 
days, but it was not prudent to indulge in such 
pleasures, her position necessitating the utmost 
seclusion of herself and children from the outer 
world. About a month afterwards she sent a 
messenger secretly to Skipton, to ascertain what 
had occurred there since she left, and on his 
return learnt that the King s Commissioners had 
visited the Castle and taken possession of it and 
the estates in the name of the Crown ; moreover. 



124 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

that they had made particular inquiries after Lady 
Clifford and " the brats of the Butcher of Wake- 
field," but were put off by being told by the 
domestics in charge that they had left Skipton a 
month ago, and gone they knew not where, but 
believed to some country across the sea. The 
Yorkists, however, seem to have suspected that 
this was not the truth, and shortly afterwards 
strangers of sinister aspect were observed to be 
lurking about Londesborough. This excited 
great terror in the breast of Lady Clifford, who 
saw clearly that her children were in great 
danger, and she took prompt measures for their 
safety. She had three children — Henry, the 
eldest, about seven years of age ; Richard, the 
younger son ; and a daughter — Elizabeth, 
affianced to one of the Plumptons of Plumpton. 
She soon decided on her plans. The maid who had 
nursed her when a child, had married a shepherd 
on the estate, and Henry was placed under 
her charge, to be brought up as her child, to live 
as his foster-parents lived, and follow the 
occupation of tending sheep on the hillsides, in 
which measure, he, being an intelligent child, 
cheerfully acquiesced, assumed the shepherd's 
garb, and attended to the duties of his new 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 125 

station without the slightest murmur, his sole 
regret being the enforced absence from his 
mother. Richard was sent in charge of a 
careful servant to Ravenspurn, and thence 
carried across the sea to Flanders, whilst 
Elizabeth, who, it was supposed, would not 
be molested, remained as the sole comfort and 
solace of her mother. These measures were not 
taken a moment too soon, for " a little after they 
were thus disposed of, the adverse party examined 
their mother about them, who told them that 
she had ordered them to be carried beyond sea to 
be bred up there ; but whether they were alive 
or not she could not tell, which answer satisfied 
them for the present," and, after making strict 
search without effect, they departed. 

In 1466, Lord de Vesci died, and Lady 
Clifford, as his heiress, succeeded to his estates, 
when a rumour reached Londesborough from the 
Court that the King suspected that the children 
were in concealment there, upon which Lady 
Clifford sent the shepherd, with his wife and 
young Henry, to a farm in a remote and wild 
part of Cumberland, where there were few 
inhabitants, and no roads upon which passengers 
would travel, excepting from one sheep track to 



126 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

another. In this lonely solitude, tending his 
sheep on the bleak hills, Henry grew up from 
boyhood to youth, and from youth to manhood — 
a mere shepherd and little more. His fare was 
that of an ordinary peasant — oaten or rye bread, 
occasionally swine flesh, and water from the 
running brook. His bed consisted of sheepskins 
on a heap of straw, and his shelter from the in- 
clemency of the weather a straw-thatched cottage. 
He associated with the few scattered people 
of the district as one of themselves, and joined 
the young men in the rude sports of the period. 
He grew up without any education whatever, 
and knew neither how to read nor write ; yet 
he had a soul attuned to higher things, and when 
abroad at night with his sheep would observe 
the constellations in the heavens, and weave 
theories in his own mind relative to the origin, 
motions, and uses of the glittering specks which 
studded the firmament over his head, a study 
which he afterwards pursued with more in- 
telligence, in company with the Canons of 
Bolton at Barden Tower. Thus he lived until 
his thirty-second year, thinking only to live and 
die a Cumberland shepherd, and possibly to 
marry, and be the progenitor of a race of 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 127 

peasants, who should have no reminiscences 
of the glories of Skipton, or the martial deeds of 
their illustrious ancestors. 

The political world of England, however, had 
not stood still in the interval, mighty events 
had been taking place. Edward, the King, had 
been gathered to his fathers, after the judicial 
murder of his brother, the Duke of Clarence. 
His sons, Edward V. and the Duke of York, 
were murdered by their uncle, Richard of 
Gloucester, who usurped the throne. Henry, 
Earl of Richmond, with Lancastrian blood in his 
veins, invaded England, and the battle of Bos- 
worth was fought in the year 1485, when the 
usurper Richard was slain, and Richmond 
ascended the throne as King Henry "VII. 

The Yorkist dynasty having now come to an 
end, there remained no more fear for the 
Cliffords. The shepherd was brought from the 
fells of Cumberland to Londesborough. Soon 
after the Attainder was reversed, the confiscated 
estates restored, and the Clifford banner again 
floated in the breeze from the towers of Skipton. 
But the Shepherd Lord felt not at home amid 
the splendours of his castle, and he fitted up one 
of the keeper's lodges in Barden Forest for 



128 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

his residence, where he lived in great simplicity, 
spending his days in hunting and his nights 
in watching the stars, and studying astronomy 
with the Canons of Bolton, with such rude 
instruments as were then to be procured. 

In 1513, when about sixty years of age, he 
received a summons to attend the expedition into 
Scotland, with a contingent of men-at-arms, and 
held a command at the battle of Flodden, where 
he displayed the hereditary military skill and 
valour of the Cliffords. 

" From Penigent to Penclle Hill, 

From Linton to Long Addingham, 
And all that Craven coasts did till, 

They with the lusty Clifford came. 
All Staincliffe Hundred went with him, 

With striplings strong from Wharfedale, 
And all that Hauton Hills did climb, 

With Longstroth eke and Litton dale, 
Whose milk-fed fellows, fleshly bred, 

Well brown'd, with sounding bows upbend, 
All such as Horton fells had fed, 

On Clifford's banners did attend." 

— Ballad of Flodden Field. 

He survived the battle ten years, died in 
1523, at about the seventieth year of his age, 
and was buried with his ancestors in the church 
of Bolton. 



THE SHEPHERD LORD. 129 

Margaret, Lady Clifford, married for her 
second husband, Launcelot Threlkeld, and bore 
him three daughters. She survived her first 
husband thirty years, and the restitution seven 
years, dying in 1491, at Londesborough. She 
was buried in the church there, near the altar, 
under a slab, with an inlaid brass plate bearing 
the following inscription : — " Orate pro anima 
Margarete, D'ne Clifford et Vescy, olim spouse 
nobilissimi viri joh'is D'm Clifford et Westmore- 
land, filie et hereditis Henrici Bromflet, quondam 
D'ni Vescy, etc. . . . Matris Henrici Domini 
Clifford, Westmoreland et Yescy, quae obiit 15 
die mens Aprilis, Anno Domini 1491, cujus corpus 
sub hoc marmore est humatum." 



k 



The Felons of Ilkley. 



iSS^t HE town of Ilkley, on the Wharfe, now 
(jj^^yl! so we H known to tourists for the 
jj^pMlj beauty of its situation and the 
grandeur of the natural scenery surrounding it, 
and to invalids for the invigorating and restorative 
qualities of its waters, is a place of very ancient 
date. It was built and fortified by the 
propraetor, Yirius Lupus, in the time of the 
Emperor Severus, the fortress being situated 
on a precipitous bank of the Wharfe, and a 
cohort stationed there. Remains of the 
intrenchments are still to be seen, and altars, 
sepulchral stones, and other memorials of the 
Roman Olicaria have frequently been disinterred. 
Under the Saxons, too, it was a place of some 
importance, with a church and priest. In the 
churchyard there are some remarkable relics 
of this age, consisting of three stone crosses, 
with curiously convoluted knots and scroll work. 
Afterwards it sank into a mere village, but with a 



THE FELONS OF ILKLEY. 131 

grammar school, founded in 1601 by the parish- 
ioners, and so remained until recent times, 
when the fame of its salubrious springs went 
forth over the land and attracted crowds of 
fashionable invalids and hypochondriacs. 

It was in the latter half of the seventeenth 
century, when the reign of the Puritans had 
come to an end, and the " Merry Monarch" had 
been restored to the throne of the Stuarts, bring- 
ing with him the profligate, licentious, and pro- 
fane manners of the Court of Versailles, that one 
fine summer's afternoon a party of roysterers, 
who had been at a cock-fight, burst into the 
kitchen of the mud-built and thatched alehouse 
of Ilkley, calling upon Mistress Laycock, the ale- 
wife, for sundry flagons of ale wherewith to 
moisten their throats, parched and dry with 
halloaing and shouting out bets at the cocking 
match. The twenty years' rule of the Puritans, 
with the suppression of sports, theatres, and 
other amusements, and the substitution of long 
sermons and long prayers, had produced the 
natural reaction, and now the people of Ilkley, 
as in other places, returned with renewed zest 
to their bull-baiting, dog fights, cudgel matches, 
and their more innocent amusements of dancing 



132 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

round the maypole, holding yule-feasts and 
village fairs, and mumming in grotesque masquer- 
ade on Plough Monday. 

The roysterers who thus boisterously invaded 
Dame Laycock's kitchen were Tom Heber, a 
young scapegrace, son of Reginald Heber, a 
barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple, and an 
offshoot of the ancient family of Heebeare, who 
had been settled in Craven for some centuries. 
He had been brought up in the old gabled 
and cross-timbered house of his father in Ilkley, 
had been well educated, and was a clever and 
accomplished young fellow ; moreover, his father 
had taken him once or twice to London, and 
he had been a witness of the revels and 
immoralities of Whitehall, which struck his 
fancy as being the perfection of human bliss. 
His companions this afternoon were Will 
Hudson, the village cobbler, who infinitely pre- 
ferred swaggering at a bull-baiting to hammering 
at the lapstone ; Walter Pollard, a shoeing 
smith, whose feats at tossing off the contents of a 
blackjack were the admiration of his comrades ; 
Jack Smithers, a journeyman flesher, whose dog 
was the pride of the village for his pluck in 
tackling any animal of his size or more than his 



THE FELONS OF ILKLEY. 133 

size ; and two or three other rapscallions of the 
village, who were ever foremost in a brawl, and 
more frequently seen in the purlieus of the ale- 
house than in pursuit of their proper vocations. 

These worthies had now seated themselves on 
the long-settle which faced a fire of wood on the 
hearth-stone, over which swung a large cauldron, 
and called out vociferously for the ale. " Now 
then, Mother Laycock," shouted Heber, " when 
is this ale coming?" " The old score's not 
paid yet, Master Thomas," replied she, from 
another room, " and I told you that I 
would not draw another pint until that was 
paid." " Oh ! you won't, won't you ; then your 
crockery shall suffer for your obstinacy ; so here 
goes," and down he dashed an earthenware jug 
on the floor, upon which she rushed in, and 
opening a cupboard door, showed a long score 
chalked against him. " Oh ! hang the score," 
said he, " you know I shall pay you some day ; 
my father cannot be so hard as to keep me 
entirely without money." " But, Master 
Thomas, I cannot afford to give such long trust." 
" Now, Mistress Laycock, you know I am a good 
customer, and always pay in the long run ; is 
this ale forthcoming ? " and down he threw 



134 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

another piece of* crockery, adding, " It shall all 
go if you do not bring the ale." The old dame, 
terrified at the breakage of her pots, then gave 
in and produced the ale, adding it to the score on 
the cupboard door. 

The ale jug passed merrily round, and the con- 
versation turned first upon the points of the cock- 
fight they had been witnessing, and then upon 
the merits of the competitors in a wrestling 
match which was coming off the following 
Sunday. They then began to complain of their 
scant fortunes, not attributing it at all to their 
lack of industry in business. " I'll tell you what 
it is," said Heber, " its a parlous shame that my 
father keeps me so short of money." " It is ! it 
is ! " echoed his companions. " He has brought me 
up as a gentleman, and given me a good education, 
but does not allow me the means to support that 
position, and I say again that it is cursed shame ; 
but never mind, boys, the time is coming when I 
shall have plenty of gold to scatter about amongst 
you, my jolly companions." " Brayvo ! brayvo ! 
three cheers for Squire Heber." " Meanwhile," 
continued he, " it is the best philosophy to make 
the best of what we have, to enjoy life as much 
as we can, to dance, and drink, and sing, 



THE FELONS OF ILKLEY. 135 

and fling dull care to the winds. So drink, 

boys ! drink ! and I will sing you one of 

Cowley's new songs which I picked up in 

London." And he trolled forth — 

"Fill the bowl with rosy wine ; 
Around our temples roses twine ; 
And let us cheerfully awhile, 
Like the vine and roses smile, 
Crown'd with roses we contemn 
Gyges' wealthy diadem. 

To-day is ours ; what do we fear 1 
To-day is ours ; we have it here. 
Let's treat it kindly, that it may 
Wish, at least, with us to stay. 
Let's banish business ; banish sorrow • 
To the gods belongs to morrow." 

Of course, the song was rapturously applauded 
by the listeners, who caught the general senti- 
ment, but were unable to understand the allusions 
or appreciate the refinement of the language. 
Suddenly Heber exclaimed — " Lads ! a bright 
thought has flashed across my mind. We want 
money, and money we must have. Old Alic 
Squire is well to do, and always has a consider- 
able sum of money by him, and it would be a 
charity to relieve him of the care and anxiety of 
keeping it in that lonely house of his. The thing 
could be easily done. We have but to disguise 



136 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

ourselves, break into his house, take what we 
require, and leave him to attribute the appropria- 
tion, I won't call it theft, to professional 
burglars." The confederates highly approved of 
the scheme, and gave a ready assent, after which 
they arranged a plan of operation, and agreed to 
carry it into execution three nights hence. 

On the appointed evening they assembled 
at the house of Will, the cobbler, where they 
donned sundry disguises, armed themselves with 
cudgels, an axe, a crowbar, and a wooden wedge, 
and sallied forth into the moonlight. Squire's 
farmhouse lay at a little distance from the village, 
shrouded in trees. It was occupied by himself, 
a widower, and his married daughter, Elizabeth 
Beecroft ; whilst in the barn, on that night, slept 
one Jane Beanland. The moon was nearly at 
full, but masses of clouds drifted across its face, 
obscuring its beams, so that it only shone out at 
intervals. As they approached the house at 
midnight a profound silence prevailed; not a dog 
barked, and it was only broken occasionally by 
the distant hooting of an owl. A minute or two 
were only required to force open the door by the 
application of the wedge and three or four blows 
of the axe, and Heber, Hudson, and Pollard 



THE FELONS OF ILKLEY. 137 

entered the house, the others remaining outside. 
The old man had been awakened by the noise of 
forcing the door open, and he came from his bed- 
room half-dressed, demanding what they wanted 
by thus breaking into his house. " Money," was 
the reply, " and if you do not give it up we shall 
take it." " I have got no money for you," he 
answered, and, seizing upon a poker, he stood 
upon his defence, but was overpowered by a blow 
on the head, and the robbers then prized open his 
desk, but found in it not more than fifty shillings, 
and broke open a cupboard, taking from it a 
piece of beef, after which they went away, much 
disappointed at the smallness of their booty. 
Notwithstanding their disguise, they had been 
identified, Squire, in his deposition, stating that 
he recognised Tom Heber by his stature and the 
softness of his hand, which he felt when 
struggling with him ; Elizabeth, his daughter, 
whose room they had entered and " nearly 
smothered her in the bed clothes," also recognised 
" Mr. Thos. Heber," as one of the party ; and 
Jane Beanland deposed that, as she lay in the 
barn, she heard the voices of Mr. Thos. Heber, 
of Holling, and William Hudson, of Ilkley, when 
they were breaking open the door. Moreover, 



138 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Elizabeth Longfellow gave evidence that going 
into the alehouse of Josias Laycock, where 
Walter Pollard was drinking, she overheard him 
say, " I am now making Bess Squire's half- 
crowns fly." They had left behind them also an 
iron gavelock, a staff, and a wedge, which were 
identified as having been in their possession 
a day or two before the crime was committed. 

These facts having come to light, warrants 
were issued for the apprehension of the offenders, 
and they were brought before Walter Hawkes- 
worth, of Hawkesworth, the nearest magistrate. 
This gentlemen was a friend of Serjeant Heber, 
and, knowing Tom well, he expressed his regret 
at seeing him placed in that situation, who, 
however, laughingly replied that it was only done 
for a lark, but the magistrate, after hearing the 
depositions, with a grave countenance, said " It 
might be a lark, but at the same time it was a 
felony, and a serious outrage of the law, and he 
had no alternative but to commit them to York 
for trial at the assizes." 

They were consequently arraigned at the assizes 
on a charge of burglary, but escaped the usual 
severe punishment, partly on the ground that 
the crime was committed as a frolic, which was 



THE FELONS OF ILKLEY. 139 

the line of defence, partly through family 
influence, and partly through the powerful agency 
of money. 

It is a remarkable fact that there were then 
resident in Ilkley two families — the Hebers, of 
whom was the criminal, and the Longfellows, a 
member of whom was a witness on the trial against 
him, and that from them are descended two of the 
most charming poets of modern times — Reginald 
Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, author of " Palestine," 
and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose 
writings are as much admired in England as in 
his native America. 




The Ingilby Boar's Head. 

HE crest of the Ingilbys of Ripley is 
"A boar's head couped and erect 
arg., tusked or/' which was obtained 
by an early knight of the family, in a romantic 
fashion, and as the reward for a valiant 
achievement. 

In the reign of Edward the Confessor the 
manor of Ripley was held by Merlesweyn, a 
powerful Danish lord, and owner of many 
another manor and estate in the same district. 
He joined in the Gospatric insurrection against 
William the Conqueror, in favour of Edgar the 
Atheling, for which rebellion his lands were 
confiscated, and granted to Ralph de Paganel, 
a Norman noble who had fought at Hastings, 
and who besides became Lord of Leeds, Head- 
ingley, and extensive estates on the Ouse, the 
Aire, and the Nidd ; holding the Merlesweyn 
estates in capite from the King ; Leeds, etc., by 
the service of a knight's fee and a half, under the 



THE INGILBY BOARS HEAD. 141 

Lacies of Pontefract ; whilst lands at Adel, 
Arthington, etc., devolved on him in right of his 
wife, Matilda, daughter of Richard de Surdeval. 
He was the founder of the Priory of the Holy 
Trinity, York, upon which, in 1080, he bestowed 
the churches of Leeds and Adel. 

From the Paganels, Ripley passed to the 
Trusbut family, how does not appear, and from 
them, by the marriage of the heiress, to the 
family of de Pos of Ingmanthorpe, a branch 
of the de Pos's of Hamlake and Holderness, 
who became the superior lords, under whom the 
manor was held for half a knight's fee, early 
in the twelfth century, by a family whose 
previous name is not recorded, but who adopted 
that of de Ripley from their possessions. From 
this family descended the famous Canon of Brid- 
lington, Sir George de Pipley, in the fifteenth 
century, the alcnymist and "discoverer" of the 
philosopher's stone, as he professed, in 1470, and 
who contributed annually vast sums of money 
to the Knights of Rhodes for maintaining their 
warfare against the Mussulmans. 

The Ingilbys are of Scandinavian origin, seated 
for a long period at Engelby, in Lincolnshire, 
whence they derived their surname, who, at the 



142 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

time of Domesday Book held three manors 
in Lincolnshire, two in the North Riding of 
Yorkshire, under the Bishop of Durham and 
William of Poictou, and one in Derbyshire. In 
1350, or thereabouts, Sir Thomas de Ingilby, 
Justice of the Common Pleas, married Catherine 
or Luerne, daughter and heiress of Bernard (?) 
de Ripley, and came into possession of the Ripley 
estates, where he settled, and, seven years after- 
wards, obtained a charter for an annual fair and 
weekly market at Ripley. 

The Ingilbys, still extant, have held a dis- 
tinguished place among the families of Yorkshire, 
and many members of the family have been 
entrusted with high offices in Church and State, 
and become eminent in the field. 

John Ingilby [temp. Richard II.), was the 
second founder of and benefactor to the Carthus 
an Monastery of Mount Grace, in Cleveland. 
John, born at Ripley in 1434, "did wondrously 
flourish in the reign of Henry VI." Sir William, 
his son, was knighted by " Lord Gloucester on 
Milton Field, in Holland, in 1482," for valour. 
A John de Ingilby was Prior of Sheen and 
Bishop of LlandafF, 1496-1500. Sir William, 
born 1515, was High Sheriff of Yorkshire and 



THE INGILBY BOARS HEAD. 143 

Treasurer of Berwick, temp. Elizabeth. David, 
his second son, married Anne Nevile, daughter of 
Charles, sixth Earl of Westmoreland, by which 
marriage his representatives, with those of 
Nicholas Pudsey, are co-heirs of the abeyant 
Barony of Nevile of Baby. Francis, third son of 
Sir William, was a Boman Catholic priest, and 
was executed at York, in 1586, for performing the 
functions of his office in the realm. John, fifth 
son of Sir William, was presented in the list 
of recusants in 1604. William, eldest son of 
Sampson of Spofforth, fourth son of Sir William, 
was created baronet in 1642, and fought on 
the King's side at Marston Moor. His castle at 
Bipley was garrisoned for the King, and Crom- 
well, after the battle of Marston Moor, passing 
through Bipley, demanded lodgings for the night, 
which w T as at first refused by Lady Ingilby, but 
he was, after a parley, admitted, on the promise 
that his followers should not be guilty of any 
impropriety. She received him with a couple of 
pistols stuck in her apron string, and on leaving 
in the morning, he inquired the meaning of the 
two weapons. " I'll tell you," she replied, " why I 
had two ; it was that the second might be ready 
in case the first missed fire, for if you had be- 



144 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

haved otherwise than peaceably I should have pis- 
tolled you without the least remorse." Sir 
William rebuilt Ripley Castle. In one of the 
towers is the following inscription : — " In the 
yiere of owre Ld. M.D.L.V. was this towre 
buyldyd by Sir Willyam Ingilby, Knight ; 
Philip and Mary reigning that time." In the 
great staircase window is a series of escutcheons 
on stained glass, containing the arms of Ingilby 
and of the families with whom they had inter- 
married. Sir William, the second baronet, pur- 
chased the manor of Armley from the Mauliverers. 
Sir John, the fourth baronet died 1772, when the 
baronetcy expired. The baronetcy was revived 
in 1781, in the person of John Ingilby, an illegiti- 
mate son of the fourth baronet of the previous 
creation. Sir William Amcotts, his fourth son, 
succeeded to the baronetcy of his maternal grand- 
father, Sir Wharton Amcotts, by special remain- 
der, and to that of his father in 1815, but died 
s.p., in 1854, when the baronetcy expired. 

In 1866 the baronetcy was again restored, in 
the person of the Rev. Henry John, nephew 
of the above Sir John, in his succession by will to 
the Ripley estates, whose son, Sir Henry Day is 
the present holder, with (according to the new 



THE INGILBY BOARS HEAD. 145 

Domesday Book, of 1876) an acreage in the West 
Riding of 10,000, producing a rental of £11,149 
per annum. 

In Ripley Castle there is, or was, a full-length 
portrait of a knight of the Ingilby family, attired 
in the hunting costume of the Plantagenet times, 
with the head of a wild boar at his feet. This is 
the presentment of Sir William Ingilby, a 
doughty warrior and a hunter of renown, who 
lived in the troublous reign of Edward II. 
Although the representative of the family still 
lived in Lincolnshire, not having yet acquired the 
Ripley estates, this Sir William resided on one 
of the Yorkshire estates not far distant from 
Ripley, and would be on terms of intimacy with 
the family of de Ripley, whose heiress was won 
by Sir Thomas Ingilby, the Justice of the 
Common Pleas, and who possibly might have 
been the son of Sir William. Sir William had 
gained some renown in the Scottish wars of King 
Edward I. against William Wallace, and had 
been an ardent and loyal supporter of the weak 
and unfortunate second Edward on his accession 
to the throne, from the fact of his being the son 
of the great and glorious King, the first of that 
name. 

l 



146 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

He remained loyal until the King gave himself 
up into the hands of his favourite, Piers 
Gaveston, who humoured his naturally depraved 
inclinations, and led him into acts of mal- 
government, which estranged the hearts of the 
people. He loaded him with benefits, bestowing 
on him great estates and much treasure. 
Amongst other grants he gave him the Lordship 
of Knaresborough Castle and forest, with divers 
liberties, franchises, and privileges, which led him 
to assume a high and dictatorial tone to the 
nobles of the realm, who expostulated with the 
King, and compelled him to banish the insolent 
foreigner. But the King, not able to learn 
wisdom in the school of experience, recalled him 
and bestowed fresh benefits upon him, which so 
exasperated the Barons that they rose in arms, 
with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, at their head, 
captured the favourite in Scarborough Castle, 
and beheaded him. The King then took the 
Spensers into his favour, who became more 
intolerably oppressive than their predecessor, upon 
which the Barons again rose in arms, but were 
defeated in a battle at Boroughbridge, and nearly 
a hundred barons, knights, and other prisoners 
put to death, the Earl of Lancaster being be- 



THE INGILBY BOARS HEAD. 147 

headed at Pontefract. In the sequel, however, 
the Spensers met the same fate as Gaveston, 
the elder being executed at Bristol, and the 
younger at Hereford. 

Notwithstanding his personal loyalty, Sir 
William became so disgusted at the imbecile 
conduct of the King, and the arrogance of his 
favourites, that he took up arms with the Barons 
for the purpose of removing them from the Royal 
councils. A bloody revenge was taken by the 
King on the leaders and more prominent members 
of the conspiracy, but those of lesser degree 
were permitted to escape capital punishment, 
being punished by fines, confiscations, etc., and 
lay under a cloud of disgrace until the barbarous 
murder of the King in Berkley Castle, and the 
accession of Edward III., removed the stigma. 

In this latter category was included Sir 
William Ingilby, who would most probably 
have remained alienated from the good graces 
of the King had not a fortunate circum- 
stance occurred, which restored him to favour, 
and which had an influence in enhancing the 
dignity of the family. 

Sir William's residence was in the valley of the 
Nidd, " one of the most romantic, picturesque, 



148 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

and wealthy vales in England." Spreading 
around for a distance of several miles lay the 
magnificent Forest of Knaresborough, the home 
of wild cattle, wolves, wild boars, the roebuck, and 
other ferocious animals of the chase. To the 
east stood, on its craggy and almost inaccessible 
rock, overhanging the Nidd and the then small 
village of Knaresborough, the formidable fortress 
of Serlo de Burgh, whilst on the verge of the 
forest stood the splendid monastic establishments 
of Fountains, Bolton, Bipon, and other lesser 
houses. The forest has the reputation of having 
been one of the haunts of Bobin Hood, one 
portion bearing traditionally the name of " Bobin 
Hood's Bark," whence he issued to pay his visits 
to the Abbey of Fountains, as recorded in 
ballad lore. In the western portion of the forest 
lay the Boyal chase of Haver ah Bark (Hey-wra, 
the park of the wra or roe), consisting of 2,000 
acres, densely wooded, and inhabited by beasts of 
chase, which were kept together and preserved by 
an oak paling, which encircled the park. The 
road thither from Knaresborough ran through 
the forest south of the Nidd, and across an 
upland, since famous for its chalybeate springs, 
and where there were then a few scattered 



THE INGILBY BOAR'S HEAD. 149 

cottages, forming a small hamlet, which came to 
be designated Heynragate — the road to Heynra 
Park — which has since been corrupted into 
Harrogate, and has become one of the most 
fashionable inland watering places in the 
kingdom. 

The Castle and forest of Knaresborough 
were granted to Serlo de Burgh, who built the 
castle, after whom they were alternately in 
the hands of the - Crown, or of some Royal 
favourite on whom they had been bestowed. 
Edward II. made a grant of them to Piers 
Gaveston, on whose death they reverted to the 
Crown. It was during this period that the King 
came to Knaresborough Castle to relax himself 
from the cares and anxieties of Royalty, by three 
or four days' hunting in Haverah Park. He was 
not attended by a large retinue, being only 
accompanied by three or four friends, and a few 
body servants ; huntsmen, beaters, and other 
attendants of the chase being permanently 
retained there, as well as hounds and all the 
requisite hunting gear and weapons ; this was 
because of his unpopularity with the people, 
on account of his governing the realm upon the 
advice of unworthy favourites. Hence he came 



150 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

down with some degree of secrecy, in a species of 
incognito, and it was not known generally to the 
residents of the valley who the hunter was, the 
supposition being that he was some friend of the 
King's, who had been given permission to hunt in 
Haverah chase. 

The day following his arrival at Knaresborough, 
the King rode through the forest to Haverah, 
accompanied by his friends, and a following of 
attendants bearing bows and arrows, boar spears, 
beating staves, and other implements of hunting, 
who were on foot. On entering the enclosures 
the attendants sent their dogs amongst the under- 
wood and commenced beating the bushes, with 
loud cries to start the game. As these were 
very plentiful, a number of small animals, badgers, 
foxes, polecats, etc., were roused from their lairs 
in quick succession, and afforded considerable 
sport. Two or three stags were also started, 
one of which was killed by the King, by an arrow 
shot ; and a wolf made his appearance, who 
displayed great pugnacity, and caused great 
excitement amongst the hunters. Towards noon 
the King and his friends sat down to a refection 
under the shadow of a patriarchal oak, which, 
from its size and evident age, rendered it possible 



THE INGILBY BOAR'S HEAD. 151 

that it might have witnessed the Druidical 
mysteries of the Brigantes. Again the beaters 
and dogs commenced their operations, and were 
rewarded by the appearance of a huge wild boar, 
armed with a formidable pair of tusks, who rushed 
into the glade where the hunters were assembled. 
The dogs rushed upon him, barking with eager- 
ness, and the King and his friends, taking boar 
spears from the attendants, rode at a gallop 
towards the animal, who gazed upon them for a 
few moments, as if to measure the strength of his 
opponents, and then turned and dashed amongst 
the underwood, followed by the hounds and the 
hunters. 

Two or three of the dogs, venturing too 
near the boar, were instantly ripped up, and the 
hunters followed as best they might through the 
tangled brushwood. The King, who was better 
mounted than his friends, soon left them behind, 
and, brandishing his spear, followed in the track 
made by the boar, not without sundry scratches 
from the projecting branches of the forest trees ; 
but the boar still kept ahead, occasionally turning 
to look at the hounds who were yelping at his 
heels, and then dashing onward again ; whilst the 
King, mounted on a powerful and fleet horse, 



152 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

gradually gained on the beast, despite the 
obstacles that beset his path. 

Although the forest of Knaresborough was 
a Royal appanage, the foresters, as the inhabi- 
tants of the district were called, possessed certain 
privileges of hunting therein, with certain limits ; 
from Haverah Park alone were they excluded, 
that domain being reserved exclusively for the 
King and those to whom he gave permission to 
hunt in the enclosure. Sir William Ingleby 
being a " forester," therefore had the right of 
following game in the forest outside the palings 
of Haverah. On the same day that the King 
went to hunt in Haverah Park, Sir William went 
out, boar spear in hand, in search of sport. He 
was not accompanied by either attendant or dog, 
trusting alone to his own natural prowess, in 
case he should meet with game. In his wander- 
ings he had come near the palings of the park, 
and sat down to partake of a luncheon he had 
brought with him in his pocket. He was just 
finishing his meal when he heard the cry of hunt- 
ing dogs, and immediately afterwards a crashing 
sound. Looking up he saw the palings give 
way, and a huge boar rushing through the gap, 
followed by half a dozen dogs and a man on 



THE INGILBY BOARS HEAD. 153 

horseback. He had just time to observe that 
the hunter was clad in a buff jerkin, with high- 
reaching boots, and was brandishing a boar spear 
and encouraging the hounds, when the boar, find- 
ing himself so hotly pursued, turned at bay, 
drove his tusks into a couple of the dogs, 
and then sprang upon the hunter, over- 
turning the horse, and laying the hunter pros- 
trate on the sward. He was just on the point 
of dashing his tusks into the body of the fallen 
enemy, when Sir William rushed up, and with 
well directed aim struck his spear into the heart 
of the boar, which fell lifeless at his feet, and 
then, taking his knife from his girdle, with a 
huntsman's skill severed the head from the body, 
the whole occupying but a few minutes. 

" And who are you, my brave fellow ? " in- 
quired the fallen hunter, whom Sir William had 
assisted in rising and disentangling from his 
horse. 

" I am a denizen of the forest," replied Sir 
William. " As to my name, it matters not ; but 
right glad am I to have been the means of rescu- 
ing you from the fangs of that monster." 

" You have saved me from death, whoever you 
may be," said the hunter, " and your guerdon 



154 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

shall be equivalent to the service you have 
rendered me." 

" May I be allowed to ask who you may be," 
continued Sir William, " who are hunting in the 
King's chase ? " 

" I am connected with the court of the King, 
who has come hither for the divertisement of 
hunting." 

" The King, whom Heaven preserve, then is 
present in the chase ? " inquired Sir William. 

" He is," replied the hunter, " the remainder of 
the party will be here anon." 

" How shall I know the King, for I shall 
wish to pay due respect to him ? " 

" Oh, he may be easily recognised, for he will 
remain covered, while all the rest momentarily 
remove their hats." 

At this moment the rest of the hunting group 
came up, all of whom uncovered their heads. 

" Now, do you recognise the king ? " inquired 
the hunter, 

" I do," he replied, dropping on his knee, 
"and crave pardon for the boldness of my lan- 
guage." 

The King, for he it was, then told his follow- 
ers how Sir William had saved his life, and that 



THE IN GIL BY BOAR'S HEAD. 155 

although he had declined giving his name, he 
would find that out, and would reward him suit- 
ably for so important a service. 

" Please your Majesty," said one of the beaters, 
" I know who the gentleman is ; he is Sir 
William Ingleby of Nidderdale." 

" Sir William Ingleby?" said the King. " If I 
remember aright, you were one of those who, 
along with our kinsman, Lancaster, appeared in 
arms against our Royal authority." 

" Not my Liege," replied Ingleby, " against 
your Royal authority, but against your evil 
advisers." 

" Well," continued the King, with a slight 
scowl, " let bygones be bygones ; you have done 
me a service which obliterates all that. You 
are from this moment restored to favour ; in 
memory of what you have done this day, I 
decree that, for the future and all time, you and 
your family shall bear, as the crest of your arms, 
a boar's head. Let me see you shortly at my 
Court, and then I will see what further I can do 
out of gratitude for the service you have render- 
ed me." 

Sir William made a profound obeisance to the 
King, and from that time the fortunes of 



156 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the Inglebys, from that circumstance, coupled 
with the fortunate marriage with the heiress of 
Bipley, continued to rise. 

The Rev. Thomas Parkinson, in his " Lays and 
Leaves of the Forest" (1882), writes — " It is im- 
possible to fix any date at which the various wild 
animals ceased to inhabit the forest. The wild 
cattle are not mentioned after the thirteenth 
century. Wolves were probably extinct in the 
fourteenth ; indeed there are traditions of their 
existence three centuries later. Deer there were 
in 1654 a.d., for William Fleetwood, Sergeant 
of the Duchy of Lancaster, was plaintiff in a suit 
against Ellis Markham for destruction of some 
deer, game, and trees in Haverah or Heywra 
Park, at that date. The last wild boar is said 
to have been slain in the Boar-hole in Haverah 
Park, in the reign of Charles II. By the middle 
of the reign of Elizabeth, however, say 1580 a.d., 
probably all, except very rare specimens indeed, 
the larger wild animals were gone. . . . 
Nominally, the district remained a Boyal forest 
up to the time of its enclosure, under Act of 
Parliament, in 1771 a.d., but long before that 
date it had practically ceased to be a refuge for 
wild beasts, or to be used for the chase. As we 



THE INGILBY BOARS HEAD. 157 

have seen, its larger animals were extinct, and, 
besides losing its chief fauna, it has been de- 
nuded, in a great measure, of its green woods and 
forest monarchs. This is said to have been 
brought about chiefly by the existence of smelt- 
ing furnaces for lead and iron in the neighbour- 
hood." 




The Eland Tragedy. 

N the reign of King Edward III., four 
gentlemen, the heads of four reputable 
county families, resided in their 
respective halls, within a short distance of each 
other, in the neighbourhood of Huddersfield. 
They were Sir John Eland, of Eland Hall ; Sir 
Robert Beaumont, of Crosland Hall ; Sir Hugh 
Quarmby, of Quarmby ; and John Lockwood, of 
Lockwood. The family of Sir John Eland had 
been seated here for several generations, des- 
cended from Leisingus de Eland, from whom 
Lasingcroft derives its name. They were a 
knightly race, had inter-married with some of the 
best county families, and lived in a style of great 
splendour. Their lands were held as a fief under 
the Earls of Warren, and Sir John, who now re- 
presented the family, held the stewardship of the 
Earl's manors in Yorkshire, including that of 
Wakefield. He was also the shire -reeve, and, as 
such, the representative of the King, in the 



THE ELAND TRAGEDY. 159 

administration of justice and law within the 
county. Little further is known of him, and he 
would have scarcely been remembered, but for a 
deadly feud which arose between him and his 
above-mentioned neighbours, and a series of 
atrocious murders arising thereout. Even this 
might have been forgotten, as at that time deadly 
fights between families or communities frequently 
occurred, and excited but little notice, blood-for- 
blood vengeance being looked upon as a matter of 
course, and in the same light that duels were a 
century or two ago. The Livery Companies 
then frequently met in Cheapside to settle their 
quarrels with bows and clubs ; and the famous 
fight of Chevy Chase was nothing more than the 
outcome of a dispute between two border Earls 
about hunting without permission across the 
border. So, with other frays of similar character, 
it might have passed into oblivion, but for a 
ballad which was written at the time, a modern- 
ised version of which appeared temp. Henry VIII. , 
and which has come down to the present time — 
a copy of which was printed in Halifax in 1789, and 
another published in Whittaker's " Loidis et 
Elmete." The more modern version was entitled 
" Revenge upon Revenge : a narrative of the 



160 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

tragical practices of Sir John Eland, High 
Sheriff of Yorkshire, on Sir Robert Beaumont, 
in the reign of King Edward III." It gives the 
whole of the proceedings, with such circumstantial 
detail that, although some authorities have 
endeavoured to throw discredit upon the narra- 
tive, and expressed their belief that it is a fiction, 
it bears internal evidence of, its truth. Sir John 
was a man of overbearing temper, impatient of 
opposition to his behests, and implacable in his 
hatred. The ballad opens with a long diatribe on 
pride and worldly ambition, and says — 

" With such like faults was found infect 
One, Sir John Eland, Knight ; 
His doings made it much suspect 
Therein he took delight." 

Whilst Sir Robert Beaumont, the main object of 
his hatred, is thus mentioned — 

" Sometime there dwelt in Crosland Hall 

A kind and courteous Knight ; 
It was well known that he withal 

Sir Robert Beaumont hight. 
Some say that Eland Sheriff was 

By Beaumont disobey'd, 
Which might him make for that trespass 

With him the worst afraid." 

The origin of the feud appears to have been in 
this wise — Earl de Warren had seduced Alice de 



THE ELAND TRAGEDY. 161 

Lacy, wife of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, upon 
which a quarrel arose between the two Earls, 
and their retainers met and fought, when a 
nephew of Sir John was slain by one Exley. 
Exley made over to Sir John a plot of land as 
compensation for the mischance, which he 
accepted, but still sought to be avenged by 
the death of the homicide. Exley fled to the 
house of his relative, Sir Robert Beaumont, 
for shelter, and Sir John demanded his surrender, 
which was refused by Sir Robert, and in this 
he was countenanced by his friends Quarmby and 
Lockwood, on the ground that Sir John, having 
accepted the plot of land, had condoned the 
offence, which gave great affront to Sir John, 
who went off muttering threats of vengeance. 

Sir John was doubtlessly perfectly right, 
in his capacity of Sheriff, to demand the delivery 
up of an offender against the laws of the realm, 
but he was equally in the wrong in having 
accepted a bribe to compromise the offence ; 
but his irritation arose from the fact of Sir Robert 
having set his authority at defiance — an insult 
which his proud spirit could not brook. He 
brooded over the matter at home for some days, 
and at length came to the resolution of erasing 

M 



162 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the stain upon his dignity by the death of Sir 
Robert, which he determined to accomplish with 
his own hands. He considered, further, that 
as Quarmby and Lockwood had backed Sir 
Robert in his defiance of him as Sheriff, they 
would be likely to avenge his death, so, to make 
assurance doubly sure, he felt it to be necessary 
to deal out the same fate to them. Accordingly, 
a few days after — 

"He raised the country round about, 

His friends and tenants all, 
And for his purpose picked out 

Stout, sturdy men, and tall. 
To Quarmby Hall they came by night, 

And there the lord they slew, 
At that time Hugh of Quarmby hight, 

Before the country knew. 
To Lockwood then, the selfsame night, 

They came, and there they slew 
Lockwood of Lockwood, that wiley wight. 

That stirred the strife anew." 

" A gentleman of that wisdom and prudence that 
he was not only reckoned, but esteemed, as the 
oracle, as well as the darling, of his country, and 
whose memory will remain fragrant in future 
ages." 

Having completed these preliminary murders, 
Sir John proceeded with his men to execute his 



THE ELAND TRAGEDY. 163 

coup de grace. Crosland Hall was surrounded by 

a deep moat — 

" The hall was watered well about, 
No wight might enter in, 
Till that the bridge was well made out 
They durst not enter in." 

As the bridge was raised, they lay in ambush till 
early in the morning, when it was lowered to 
allow a maid-servant to pass forth, upon which 
they rushed across and entered the house in a 
noisy, boisterous manner. Sir Robert came from 
his chamber, half-dressed, to ascertain the cause 
of the disturbance, when he was attacked by the 
invaders of his premises. He seized a sword and 
stood on his defence — 

" And thus it was, most certainly, 

That slain before he was 
He fought again them manfully, 

Undressed though he was. 
His lady cried and shrieked withal 

When as from her they led 
Her dearest knight into the hall, 

And there cut off his head." 

A MS. says that Exley and a brother of Sir 
Robert were killed at the same time. 

Sir John then ordered wine and victuals to be 
laid out for their breakfast, and invited the two 
sons of Sir Robert to sit down and join him in 



164 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the repast ; the younger, through fear, assented, 
but Adam, the elder, refused, with a scowling 
brow, to eat with the murderer of his father, upon 
seeing which, Sir John said, " How heinously 
that lad doth take his father's death ; and looks 
with a frowning countenance as if he would take 
revenge ; but I will keep such a watchful, circum- 
spect eye over him that he shall never be able to 
do us any harm." Having thus accomplished his 
purpose, and finished his meal beside the corpse 
of his victim lying on the floor, he departed with 
his band of assassins, nor does it appear that he 
was ever called to account for the outrage. 
After the burial of her husband, Lady Beaumont, 
fearing for the safety of her children, fled with 
them to the house of her kinsman, Townley, 
in Lancashire, and took along with her the sons 
of Quarmby and Lockwood, and a youth named 
Lacy, of Crumblebottom, where they were 
instructed together in feats of chivalry, fencing, 
tilting, shooting with the long bow, riding, 
and other knightly qualities, as preparations for 
taking their revenge. 

The curtain had fallen upon the first act of the 
drama ; fifteen years had now elapsed, and the 
second act commences. The four youths had 



THE ELAND TRAGEDY. 165 

now grown up nearly to manhood, and 
Lockwood, the eldest, suggested that the time 
was now come when " we should bravely seek 
to revenge the spilling of our fathers' blood, for 
if Eland should have that foul act for well done, 
it will encourage him in his wickedness, and 
further to proceed in destroying the whole 
posterity of our renowned ancestors ; therefore 
do I esteem it our wisdom, and an undertaking 
well becoming the successors of such worthy 
patriots, utterly to extirpate from the face of 
the earth the cursed Cain and his posterity." 
The others assented, and took into their counsel 
two men — Dawson and Haigh — retainers of 
one of the families — who had come from York- 
shire, and who informed them that Sir John 
would shortly go to Brighouse, where the 
Sheriffdom was to be held, and that they might 
easily waylay him and accomplish their purpose. 
Accordingly they set off, accompanied by an 
armed band of men, and secreted themselves 
in Crumblebottom Wood, on the wayside from 
Eland to Brighouse. 

Sir John, suspecting nothing, went on his way 
to Brighouse, and coming upon some armed men 
on the roadside whom he knew not, courteously 



166 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" vail'd his bonnet," when Adam Beaumont 
stepped forward and said — 

" Thy courtesy 'vails thee not, Sir Knight, 
Thou slew my father dear, 
Sometime Sir Robert Beaumont hight ; 
And slain thou shalt be here." 

The others addressed him in like terms. 
" Whose fathers' blood," said they all, "we are 
now come to revenge upon thee and thine." 
They then attacked him, his followers drawing 
their weapons and rallying round him in his 
defence, and a general fight commenced between 
the two companies, several on both sides being 
wounded. At length the four young men, who 
kept together, succeeded in separating Sir John 
from his followers, and inflicting upon him 
numerous w T ounds, left him lying bleeding and 
dying upon the turf. Knowing that such a 
crime as the murder of the King's Sheriff could 
not pass unnoticed, as soon as they felt assured 
that they had accomplished their revenge 
they hastened back into Lancashire, but 
feeling that they would not be safe at 
Townley Hall, they went onward into Furness, 
then a wild unfrequented corner of the county, 
with few inhabitants excepting the monks of the 



THE ELAND TRAGEDY. 167 

abbey and a few peasants who were dependent 
upon it, and hid themselves in the recesses of the 
woods, among the caves and fells, depending 
upon their bows for the supply of their daily 
food. And thus ends the second act of the 
drama. 

In the meanwhile, Sir John's son, a second 
Sir John, succeeded to Eland, who was married 
and had a son, then a young boy, who might also 
have succeeded but for the machinations of the 
allies in Furness. During the winter they had 
been laying their plots, and came to the 
determination of utterly extirpating the male 
line of the Elands, and arranged to attack Sir 
John on his way to or from church on Palm 
Sunday. Accordingly, in the spring, they came 
secretly to Crumblebottom Hall, where they lay 
'perdu to watch events, and, on the eve of Palm 
Sunday, concealed themselves in Eland Mill. 
Their proceedings, however, were not so secret 
but that rumours of impending evil reached the 
ears of Sir John, and on Sunday morning he told 
his wife that he should not go out that day, 
but she rallied him on his fears, and urged that 
he must go to church on that specially holy 
day as an example to others, upon which he 



168 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

reluctantly assented, but took the precaution 
of putting on a coat of mail beneath his waist- 
coat. 

The confederates and their followers saw the 
sun rise on the morning of Palm Sunday as they 
lay in the mill, and began to prepare for their 
meditated deed, when the door was suddenly 
opened, and the miller's wife entered for some 
corn which her husband had sent her for. They 
immediately seized her, bound her hand and foot, 
and told her that if she cried out they would 
knock her on the head. Not returning in due 
course, her husband grew wroth at her dalliance. 

" The milner swore she should repent, 
She tarried there so long ; 
A good cudgel in hand he went, 
To chastise her with wrong." 

But the miller, instead of amusing himself by 
thrashing his wife, met with the same fate that 
she had undergone, and was thrown, securely 
bound, on a heap of flour-sacks beside her. 

Sir John, his wife, and little son, left Eland 
Hall for church, taking a short cut over the 
stones of the mill-dam which was nearly empty 
in consequence of a drought. As he was 
stepping over Beaumont shot an arrow at him 



THE ELAND TRAGEDY. 169 

which glanced off his coat of mail, as did Lock- 
wood with a like effect. The villagers, who were 
going to church, seeing this, came running up, 
when Lockwood shot another arrow, which 
pierced Sir John's brain, whilst another from 
Quarmby, mortally wounded the boy. 

They had now accomplished their vengeance ; 
the male line of the Elands was extinct ; but it 
behoved them to look to their own safety, as the 
villagers, armed with clubs and hatchets, were 
assembling in great force. They rushed out of 
the mill, fought their way along Whittlelane 
End to Old Earthgate, and hence to Anely 
Wood, hotly pursued by their foes. Willet, 
Smith, Remington, and Bunney, yoemanry 
officers, also summoned their men, who armed 
themselves with " pitchforks, long staves, 
knotted clubs, and rusty bills," and joined the hunt. 
As their foes neared them, they faced round and 
presented a bold, resolute front, as long as 
their arrows lasted, when they again took to 
flight ; Lockwood carrying off Quarmby, who 
had fallen wounded. They gained the shelter of 
the wood, where they left Quarmby, dead, and 
each sought to shift for himself. Beaumont took 
refuge in Crosland Hall, and stood on his defence 



170 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

with the bridge drawn up ; he afterwards escaped to 
France, fought against the Turks in Hungary, 
where he won great fame and honour, and 
eventually became a Knight of Rhodes. Lock- 
wood sought shelter in Camel Hall, but was 
captured when incautiously visiting a village 
maiden with whom he had an amour, and was 
put to death there and then, and so ended the 
race of the Lockwoods. What became of Lacy 
is not known. Sir John Eland, the younger, 
left a daughter and heiress, who married Sir 
John Savile, of Tankersley, and conveyed the 
Eland and other estates to that family. 



The Plumpton Marriage. 

HE Plumpton family, of Plumpton, 
near Knaresborough, were established 
there from the period of the Domes- 
day Book, when Edred de Plumpton held two 
carucates of land of William de Percy, the mesne 
lord. They had estates afterwards at other 
places — Idle, near Leeds, held of the Lacies ; 
Steeton, near Tadcaster ; Nesfield, near Otley, 
where they had a manor-house, and elsewhere. 
They were a family of considerable importance in 
Yorkshire, and were great benefactors to the 
Nunnery of Esholt, in Craven. They frequently 
make a conspicuous appearance in the various 
historical events of the centuries of their 
existence. Peter, son of Nigel, suffered confisca- 
tion of his lands for confederating with the 
Barons against King John ; but, on submitting 
and doing fealty to Henry III., they were 
restored. Sir Robert, founder of a chapel in the 
church in Knaresborough, was beheaded at York, 



172 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

for participation in Scrope's rebellion against 
King Henry IV., in 1408. Sir William, who 
objected to the levying of tolls, at Otley and 
Ripley, by Archbishop Kemp, lay in wait for 
the tax-gatherers at Thornton Bridge, with a 
company of foresters. The officials, apprehending 
the meaning of the armed men by the bridge, 
turned aside to pass over the river by Brafferton 
Ford, but were followed by Sir William and his 
men, shouting, " Slay the Archbishop's carles, 
and would to God we had the Archbishop himself 
here." In the fray which ensued, several of the 
Archbishop's men were slain and wounded, and 
others taken prisoners. Robert, the last male 
representative of the family, died unmarried and 
intestate at Paris, in 1749, when the estates 
passed to his aunt, Anne, who, in 1760, sold 
them to Daniel Lascelles, for £28,000. 

A volume entitled " The Plumpton Corres- 
pondence," consisting of family letters, chiefly of 
a domestic character, written in the reigns of 
Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., and 
Henry VIII. , was published in 1869 by the 
Camden Society ; edited by Thomas Stapleton, 
from Sir Edward Plumpton's " Book of 
Letters." 



THE PLUMP TON MARRIAGE. 173 

In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert de 
Pluropton, a youthful scion of the family, was 
living at Plumpton. As the Plumptons were 
then comparatively small land-owners, and as 
they had high aspirations, aiming at the knightly 
or baronial degree, it behoved them to improve 
their landed estates by prudent marriages with 
heiresses, and thus qualify themselves for a 
higher position in the county. Young Gilbert, 
then approaching manhood, therefore cast his 
eyes about him with that purpose. His range of 
vision was rather restricted, as people in those 
days, owing to the badness of the roads and other 
causes, rarely travelled far away from home, 
and were almost compelled to select their wives 
and husbands from amongst their neighbours, 
seldom going beyond the bounds of their native 
counties to enter into matrimonial alliances. 
Besides this, eligible heiresses were but few in 
number, and being under the guardianship of the 
King, or of some one appointed by him, whose 
consent was necessary for marriage, it being 
a serious offence to marry an heiress without 
such pre-consent, it became a difficult matter, 
even when an heiress was found and her 
affections secured, to consummate their reciprocal 



174 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

love by a conjugal union ; especially as Kings 
were then wont to use their power over their 
fair wards in a very arbitrary and tyrannical 
fashion, by bestowing their hands and inheritances 
on their favourites, or in reward for some service, 
without the least consideration for the pleasure or 
will of the person most concerned — the lady 
herself. 

About this time Roger de Guile vast, or, as he 
is sometimes called, Richard Wardwast, a wealthy 
land-owner, in the neighbourhood of Plumpton, 
died, and left his only daughter, Eleanor, heiress 
to his extensive possessions. This young lady, 
Gilbert had encountered when out with his hounds 
one day, some twelve months previously. He had 
been searching for game in the woodlands of the 
picturesque scenery which surrounds Plumpton, 
and had come to the lake, when he was startled 
by the sight of an exquisitely beautiful young 
girl wandering along the shore, and seemingly 
enjoying the beautiful prospect of land, water, 
and foliaged trees. He accosted her, and she 
readily entered into conversation with him, when 
he was as much struck by her wit and sensible 
remarks as he had previously been by her beauty. 
She informed him who she was, and who her 



THE PLTJMPTON MARRIAGE. 175 

father, and he imparted to her the same 
information respecting himself, and they discovered 
that, although they had never chanced to meet 
previously, they were well acquainted with each 
other's families. Gilbert therefore knew that if 
her father died without other issue his estates 
would descend to her as his heiress. Here 
he thought was the chance he had been hoping 
for ; but as he was of a cautious, calculating 
disposition, he considered that her father, not yet 
aged, might still have a son, to whom the lands 
would pass, and leave her with nothing more 
than a slender marriage portion ; and although 
he saw that she was beautiful and accomplished, 
and was just the wife whom he would choose 
if personal charms were the chief consideration, 
he could not, in justice to his family and his own 
aspirations, marry a dowerless maiden, and he 
resolved not to commit himself too far until he 
saw more as to the chance of her succession to 
the estates. Still he determined not to lose 
sight of her altogether, and that it would be well 
in the meantime to inspire her heart with the 
sentiment of love towards him, if it were possible 
to do so. 

"Do you often walk in this direction?" he asked. 



176 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" Oh yes/' she replied, " in the beautiful 
summer sunshine, when the trees are clad in 
their bright vestments of green, and the flowers 
are opening their petals and giving forth perfume 
from every bank ; when the birds are singing 
joyfully overhead, and the hum of the bees and 
other insects add a pleasing undertone to their 
louder carolling — I love to wander alone with 
Nature for my companion. And you ! Do you 
care to commune with Nature ? or only feel a 
pleasure in going forth in the forest lands and 
pastures, to destroy the innocent and beautiful 
creatures who enjoy their existence as much 
as you do yourself ? " And so saying, she pointed 
interrogatively at his dogs, which were barking 
and sniffing about among the bushes. 

" Oh ! " answered he, " believe not that my 
sole delight is in the chase. Nature has sent 
certain animals into the world to supply us with 
food, and it is right to deprive them of life before 
placing them on the table ; nor do I think it 
wrong to destroy noxious animals, such as wolves 
and foxes, and it is only on such that I wage war ; 
nothing do I kill out of wanton sport. I ex- 
perience pleasure in the sight of the rising and 
the setting sun, I can look with delight on the 



THE PLTJMPTON MARRIAGE. Ill 

glories of a landscape, such as that which is 
spread around us, and witness with a thrill of 
sublime awe the warring of the elements in a 
tempest." 

Thus they conversed for some time, mutually 
interested in each other's conversation, and 
before parting arranged to meet at set times 
near the huge rock which rises out of the water 
and stretches for a length of fifty feet, and which 
still attracts thousands of tourists to wonder at 
and admire it. 

Many times did they meet there, and their 
love ripened at each interview, Gilbert almost 
forgetting the demands of his family for heiresses, 
and almost resolving to seek her hand, even in 
case of a brother coming to claim the inheritance ; 
but some six months afterwards, Eleanor's father 
" went the way of all flesh," and she became 
really an heiress, when Gilbert commenced 
making love to her in real earnest, his own 
private inclinations coinciding now with what 
was due to his consideration of the interests of 
his family. 

At this time Ranulph de Glanville was resident 
in Yorkshire, as Lord of Coverdale, having 
acquired the estates there by his marriage with 



178 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Bertha, daughter of Theobald de Valvins, Lord 
of Parham. He was the greatest legal luminary 
of his age, and eminent, besides, as a statesman 
and warrior ; was Judge-itinerant in Yorkshire 
and thirteen other counties, and in 1186 was 
promoted to the dignity of Chief-Justice of 
England ; he was also Sheriff of Yorkshire and 
some other counties, and was employed ex- 
tensively in State affairs. When King Henry II. 
was in France, King William of Scotland 
invaded Northumberland, in 1174, and Glanville, 
as Sheriff of Yorkshire, raised an army of 
Yorkshiremen, marched against him, defeated 
him in a battle, and took him prisoner, lodging 
him in Richmond Castle. News of the victory 
reached the King after his memorable penance at 
the tomb of Thomas a Becket, and, instead 
of attributing it to the skill of Glanville and 
the bravery of his followers, ascribed it to 
St. Thomas, as a reward for his penitential 
humiliation at his shrine. In his latter days he 
founded an abbey and a priory in his native 
county of Suffolk ; in 1189 he accompanied King 
Richard in his crusade to Palestine, and is said 
to have been slain at the siege of Acre. 

As Sheriff of the county of York, he was the 



THE PLTJMPTON MARRIAGE. 179 

representative of the King, and, of course, in the 
matter of the guardianship of heiresses and the 
disposal of their hands and inheritances. When 
intelligence reached him of the death of Roger 
de Guilevast without issue male, it occurred to 
him that it would be a good opportunity for 
rewarding one, Reiner, a favourite dependant of 
his, whom he wished to advance in life. Reiner 
is mentioned in the Plump. Cartul., 1002, 
as Sheriff of Yorkshire, but as Glanville himself 
was then Sheriff, he would probably be Deputy- 
Sheriff. He therefore proposed to bestow the 
heiress and her estates upon Reiner, and gave 
instructions to that effect. 

The lovers, for plighted lovers they had 
become when Eleanor received an intimation 
that she was to give her hand to Reiner, 
resolved upon a bold step, no less than that of 
defying the King and his Sheriff by a clandestine 
marriage. Gilbert was on terms of great 
intimacy with the Spofforths of Spofforth, a 
township adjoining that of Plumpton, an ancient 
Saxon family, one of whom, Thomas, early in the 
fifteenth century, became Abbot of St. Mary's, 
York, and, in 1422, was elected Bishop of 
Rochester, but, before installation, was constituted 



180 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Bishop of Hereford by Papal provision. One of 
the family was a priest and the close friend of 
Gilbert, and he undertook to risk the performance 
of the ceremony, which was carried out in private, 
and Gilbert took his bride home, and for a week 
or more enjoyed the usual connubial felicity of 
the honeymoon period. 

A loud knocking at the gates of the Plumpton 
Manor House one morning startled the inmates 
and aroused the fears of the newly married 
couple, who were apprehensive of the vengeance 
of the Sheriff. At first they thought of flight ; 
but where to go ? Nowhere in the realm would 
they be safe against the power of the King, so 
they were compelled perforce to abide the issue. 
When the gates were opened, a body of men 
in the livery of the Sheriff presented themselves, 
the leader of whom said, " In the name of the 
King, and by the authority of his Sheriff, Ranulph 
de Glanville, I demand to be delivered up to me 
the bodies of Gilbert de Plumpton and of 
Eleanor de Guilevast, a ward of the Crown, who 
has been treacherously carried off from her home 
by the said Gilbert, in violation of the laws of 
the realm, and in traitorous contempt of the 
King's authority." 



THE PLUMPTON MARRIAGE. 181 

At this juncture Gilbert presented himself 
with his wife leaning on his arm, and demanded 
what they meant by such intrusion and insolent 
language, adding that he was no traitor and no 
contemner of the law T s of the kingdom, but one of 
the King's most faithful subjects. 

" We come not," was the reply, " to bandy 
words with you, or decide the question at issue ; 
our instructions are to convey you to York, 
where the Sheriff will determine what further 
shall be done in the matter, and who will listen 
to any objections you may be pleased to urge in 
respect of your apprehension as a violator of the 
law." 

Seeing that there was no use in resisting, 
Gilbert said, " Then I will accompany you to 
York," and gave directions for his horse to be 
saddled. " But," he continued, " I trust it is not 
necessary to submit this lady, my wife, to the in- 
dignity ; I suppose she may remain here until I 
have vindicated my innocence, and can return to 
her." 

" That cannot be," replied the leader, " my 
instructions are to bring you and the lady, and 
loth as I am to appear discourteous to a lady, I 
must insist on her accompanying us." 



182 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" I am ready to go," said Eleanor ; " rather 
would I go to face any perils, in your company, 
than 'be left behind with all the anxieties and 
uncertainties as to what is befalling you." 

Another horse was then brought from the 
stables for her accommodation, and the party 
rode together to York. They were placed in the 
custody of the Sheriff's officers, but not in prison, 
and a few days after were brought before the 
Sheriff. He interrogated Gilbert with great 
severity, who acknowledged the marriage, and 
the lady with more courtesy, who replied with 
modesty, pleading that she was not aware that 
marrying the man to whom she had given her 
heart could be a matter of offence to the King, 
adding that, so far as she knew, even a milkmaid 
or a peasant girl was at liberty to marry whom 
she chose. The Sheriff explained that she was 
very different from a peasant girl, who was a 
mere serf, and that it mattered not whom she 
married, but that she was an inheritor of a 
portion of the land of England, the whole of 
which belonged to the King, and that such being 
the case, it was necessary for the welfare of the 
realm that he should have in his hand the 
disposal of such heiresses in marriage, so that 



THE PLUMPTON MARRIAGE. 183 

their estates should not fall into the hands of 
unworthy persons. " I can understand," he 
continued, " that you, a simple maiden, should 
be ignorant of this essential feature of the 
constitution of the realm, and being so, are 
entitled rather to compassion than blame for 
having been inveigled into this unlawful 
marriage, which, in the eye of the law, is no 
marriage at all, but concubinage. As for you, 
sir," addressing himself to Gilbert, " you are 
supposed to be cognisant of the laws of the land, 
and have been guilty of a gross crime and 
misdemeanour, which may lead to serious 
consequences. It will be necessary for me to 
lay the matter before the King's grace, and bring 
you before his tribunal of justice, so that he may 
deal with you as he deems fitting, and rest 
assured, it will go well with you if you escape 
with your life. As for your wife, as you call 
her, it is probable you will never more see her ; 
but she will be well cared for, if that be any 
consolation to you, and shall be provided with a 
suitable and worthy husband." On hearing this 
announcement, Eleanor uttered a piercing shriek, 
and fell fainting to the floor. She was carried 
away into an adjoining apartment, whilst her 



184 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

husband, betraying signs of deep agitation, 
attempted to speak, but was prevented doing so 
by direction of the Judge. 

What followed may be told in the words 
of the Plumpton MS. : — In the year 1184, while 
the King (Henry II.) was sojourning at 
Worcester with his army, with intent to make 
war with Rhys-ap-Griffin, a certain youth was 
brought there in fetters, sprung of noble lineage, 
and whose name was Gilbert de Plumpton, 
whom Ranulph de Glanville, the King's 
justiciary, had in odium, and sought to put to 
death, laying to his charge that he had ravished 
a certain maiden in the King's gift, the daughter 
of Roger de Guilevast, and kept her to him as his 
wife, and that, in the night-time, he broke 
through six doors in the abode of the girl's 
father, and took a hunting-horn and a head- 
stall, etc., along with the said maiden. He 
added, moreover, that all these things he carried 
oif by theft and robbery, and upon the issue he 
offered to abide the law. But Ranulph de 
Glanville, wishing to make away with him, 
because he designed to give the same maiden 
(whom the said Gilbert had already known after 
their espousals) to Reiner, Sheriff of Yorkshire, 



THE PLUMP TON MARRIAGE. 185 

with her father's inheritance, further exhorted 
those who were to try Gilbert to adjudge him to 
death ; and so it was done, for they sentenced 
him to be hanged, and whilst he was being led to 
the gibbet, intelligence was brought of the 
proceedings in his case to Baldwin, Bishop of the 
same city of Worcester. The which Bishop, 
though in great grief for the condemnation of the 
youth, was, however, exhorted by his attendants 
to rescue him from death. They said that he 
could legally do this, because it was a Sunday 
the same day, and upon it the Feast of Blessed 
Mary Magdalen. The Bishop (who was a meek 
and good man) acquiesced in their arguments, 
and having mounted on horseback, quickly rode 
after the executioners, who were leading the 
youth to the gibbet, and had now arrived at the 
place. Already was the youth, with his hands 
bound behind his back, and with a green band 
covering his eyes, and an iron chain round his 
neck — the executioners being on the point of 
hoisting the youth up as the Bishop arrived with 
a multitude of people. 

Having alighted from his horse, and running 
up, he stationed himself by the side of the 
prisoner, thus exclaiming and saying, " I forbid 



186 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

you, on the part of God and the blessed Mary 
Magdalen, and under sentence of excommunica- 
tion, to hang this man on this day ; because to- 
day is the day of our Lord and the feast of 
the blessed Mary Magdalen. Wherefore it is 
not lawful for you to contaminate the day." 

The executioners replied, " Who are you, and 
what madness prompts you that you have the 
audacity to impede the execution of the King's 
justice ? " But the Bishop, with no less firmness 
of heart than of speech, rejoins, " Not madness, 
but the clemency of heavenly pity, urges me ; 
nor do I desire to impede the King's justice, but 
to warn against an unwary act, lest by the 
contamination of a solemn day, you and the King 
incur the wrath of the Eternal God." 

After some altercation, divine authority at 
length prevailed ; and at the entreaty of the 
Bishop, he who was bound was unloosed ; never- 
theless he was delivered over to the keeper of the 
King's castle in safe custody, and in the morning 
to be led again to execution. But the Lord 
Almighty, who never deserts those who hope in 
Him, granted longer span of life to the said 
Gilbert. For when all these matters were 
reported to King Henry, he sent his messengers 



THE PLUMPTON MARRIAGE. 187 

in the greatest haste to the castle with orders 
that the youth should not be hanged. 

This story is deemed apochryphal by some 
authorities as being utterly inconsistent with the 
mild, beneficent, and just character of the 
Justiciary. Foss, who refers to it as a dereliction 
from the path of judicial integrity, says — 
" Presuming the story to be true, the Chief 
Justiciary's merit must have been great indeed to 
induce the King to pardon so monstrous a 
perversion of justice," adding, " some doubt, how- 
ever, cannot but be attached to the relation, not 
merely from its extravagant ferocity and the 
impunity of its perpetrators, but from the 
assertion of the work which bears Glanville's 
name, who says — " None of the Judges have so 
hardened a front, or so rash a presumption, as to 
dare to deviate, however slightly, from the path 
of justice, or utter a sentence in any measure 
contrary to the truth." It is scarcely possible to 
suppose that a King so just as Henry II. would 
have overlooked the guilt of the Judge, or have 
visited the innocence of the accused with 
imprisonment. 

On the other side, Roger de Hoveden relates 
the story with some circumstantiality, under the 



188 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

date of 1184, who was not only a contemporary, 
but was a native of Howden, not many miles 
distant from Plumpton. He adds further, that 
" The Knight (Gilbert) being rescued from death, 
was kept in prison by Ranulph de Glanville until 
the King's death (1189)." In the Annals of the 
Exchequer also, we find given the expenses of 
conveying Gilbert de Plumpton from York to 
Worcester, on this occasion. 

What became of Gilbert and Eleanor after- 
wards is not recorded, or mentioned in the 
tradition, but we may hope that after his release 
on the accession of Richard I., they were re- 
united, and that their oppressor, having died the 
following year, they were enabled to pass the 
remainder of their lives in tranquility and 
happiness. 




The Topcliffe Insurrection. 

' I wayle, I wepe, I sobbe, I sighe full sore, 
The dedely fate, the dolefulle destenny 
Of him that is gone, alas ! without restore, 
Of the blode royall descendinge nobelly ; 
Whos lordshepe doutles was slayne lamentably, 
Thorow tresen ageyn hym compassyd and wrought, 
Trew to his Prince, in worde, in dede, and thought." 

— Skelton. 

HE prevailing blemish in the character 
of King Henry VII. was avarice, 
which led him, through his rapacious 
ministers, Empson and Dudley, to oppress the 
people with extortionate taxation. To save his 
exchequer he avoided foreign wars, and once 
only did he cross the sea with that object, in the 
cause of Anne of Bretagne, whose fief was 
claimed by the French King ; but on arriving at 
Boulogne, King Charles, appealing to his master- 
passion, bought him off by means of a large 
bribe. For the purpose of this war, Parliament, 
in February, 1489, granted a tax of one-tenth of a 
penny, for a subsidy of £75,000. This oppressive 



190 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

tax was very unpopular, and especially so in 
Yorkshire and the north, the people about Thirsk, 
particularly, being loud in their murmurs. They 
were goaded on by the rough and excited 
harangues of one John a Chambre, whom Lord 
Bacon describes as "a base fellow called John 
Chambre, a very brute feu, who bore most sway 
among the vulgar." He had for his fellow leader 
Sir John Egremont, who, although not quite so 
boisterous and unpolished as Chambre, was 
equally resolute and vigorous in his opposition to 
fiscal extortion ; and these two leaders gathered 
around them a body of rustics and mechanics, 
who armed themselves with such weapons as 
they could procure, such as scythes, bill-hooks, 
and bludgeons. Vowing they would not lay down 
their arms until the tax was repealed, they went 
from village to village, and town to town, 
inveighing against the King's evil counsellors, 
explaining their designs, and enlisting recruits to 
their banner. 

An account of these turbulent proceedings 
reached the ears of the King, who sent an order 
down to the Earl of Northumberland, the Lord- 
Lieutenant of Yorkshire, to explain the necessity 
of the tax, to uphold the honour and dignity of 



THE TOPCLIFFE INSURRECTION. 191 

the nation. The Earl wrote back to the King a 
letter of remonstrance, showing that the tax was 
intolerably oppressive, a burden that they were 
scarcely able to bear, and praying him to re- 
consider it, and make some abatement in the 
demand. To this he received a reply that not a 
single penny should be abated, and he was 
enjoined to see that it was exacted to the utter- 
most farthing. 

Henry Percy, fourth Earl of Northumberland, 
was one of the most potent nobles of the north, 
and had castles at Topcliffe, on the Swale, near 
Thirsk ; at Leckonfield, near Beverley ; and at 
Wressil, near Howden — all maintained with a 
splendour almost regal, with barons, knights, and 
esquires as members of his household and retinue. 
The Castle of Topcliffe, the earliest and chief 
seat of the Percies, stood with its massive keep, 
battlemented towers, gateway, walls, and 
dungeon, upon an elevated mound called Maiden 
Bower, on the river Swale, near the confluence 
of the Cod-beck. From its nearness to Thirsk, 
the focus of the insurrection, the Earl came 
thither from Leckonfield to execute the command 
of the King, and he called a folk-mote at Thirsk 
for that purpose. With his vassals and tenants 



192 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

he was popular, being a kind and considerate 
master and landlord, and by the people of York- 
shire he was held in high esteem, so that he was 
under no apprehension, although the people were 
in arms ; and he took no measures for his safety 
in case of tumult, feeling assured that there was 
no danger, and that he would be able, by his 
explanations and expostulations, to appease the 
angry feelings of the multitude. 

On the morning of the day appointed for the 
meeting, there was a great assemblage of people 
in Thirsk, and excited crowds coming along all 
the roads leading thither from Ripon, Borough- 
bridge, Easingwold, and the neighbouring 
villages. The people were armed chiefly with 
bludgeons, and displayed two banners, one in- 
scribed " No taxes ; down with Empson and 
Dudley," the other, " Oh for the days of good 
King Dickon." Richard III., when residing at 
Middleham, as Duke of Gloucester, was exceed 
ingly popular with the poor, mingling with them 
in their amusements, and consorting with them 
as familiarly as if they were his equals, probably 
with a politic eye to the future. When he was 
carrying out his scheme of usurpation, he sent 
for a contingent of men-at-arms from his 



THE TOPCLIFFE INSURRECTION. 193 

Middleham estates, who assembled for review 
in Finsbury Fields, when one of his Yorkshire 
tenants stepped out of the ranks, and, clapping 
him on the shoulder, said, "Ah's main blythe 
thoo's goin' to be King, Dickon." 

Egremont and Chambre were in the midst on 
horseback, riding hither and thither, exhorting 
the people with inflammatory speeches to be firm 
in their determination not to pay the tax, telling 
them that all England was with them, and not to 
listen to the Earl, who was one of the King's 
advisers in levying the tax ; further, that if need 
be they would lead them to London and compel 
the King to remit the tax, or drag him from his 
throne. 

At this time the Earl rode into the town, 
surrounded by a body of retainers, all men of 
rank, habited in brilliant costume, the livery of 
the Percies. He was assailed with mingled 
cheers from his tenants, and hisses and shouts 
of opprobrium from the insurgent mob. He 
attempted to address them, but the uproar 
became greater ; again he made the attempt, 
when there arose a deafening discord of sounds 
from drums, kettles, and pans, accompanied by 
the yelling and howling of the mob, when, 



194 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

finding he could not gain their ear, he and his 
followers turned their horses' heads and trotted 
back to Topcliffe. As they passed away, the 
leaders shouted, " Bravely done, my merry men ; 
this is our first victory ; let us on to Topcliffe, 
and beard him in his castle, and then for London, 
to face the tyrant King in the Tower." The 
Earl and his followers gained the castle, and 
were seated in consultation on what were best to 
be done in the emergency, when loud shouts 
assailed their ears from outside, and, looking forth, 
they perceived that they had been followed by 
the mob, infuriated by the harangues of their 
leaders. Although implored not to do so, but to 
shut the gates and stand a siege, the Earl went 
out and faced the insurgents. 

" What want you, good people ? " he inquired. 

"A remission of the tax," replied Egremont. 

" I have no power or authority to do so," said 
the Earl. 

"Who but you advised the King that not a 
penny should be abated ? " shouted Chambre, 
and the mob yelled, and cried, " Down with him ; 
he wants to rob our children of their bread." 

The Earl was a proud man, and scorned to 
give a denial to the insinuation, which served 



THE TOPCLIFFE INSURRECTION. 195 

to inflame the passions of the rioters to a still 
higher degree. 

" He's silent, and that proves his guilt," 
shouted Chambre. " Down with him ; such 
bloodsuckers should not be allowed to exist." 

And then there was a brandishing of clubs and 
a rush forward of the mob, and in a few moments 
the Earl was stricken down, and beaten savagely 
as he lay. The mob then entered the castle 
tumultuously, and killed several of his domestics ; 
but the barons and knights, fled to seek safety, 
or, as Skelton has it — 

" Trustinge in noblemen, that wer wyth hym there ; 
Bot all they fled from hym from falshode or fere, 
He was envyronde aboute on every syde, 
"Withe his enemys that were stark mad and wode ; 
Yet whils he stode he gave them woundes wyde, 
Alas ! for southe ! what thoughe his mynde were goode, 
His courage manly ; yet there he shed his bloode. 
All left alone, alas ! he fowt in vayne, 
For cruelly among them ther he was slayne." 

Hence the insurgents went triumphantly, calling 

upon the people to unite with them in putting 

down kingly tyranny and financial oppression, 

but eventually they were met by the Earl of 

Surrey, who was sent against them, at Ackworth, 

near Pontefract, and dispersed. Chambre and 

others of the leaders were captured and hanged 



196 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

at York ; but Egremont, thanks to the fleetness 
of his horse, escaped to Flanders, and was 
protected by the Yorkist Margaret, Duchess of 
Burgundy. What was his ultimate fate is not 
known. 

The Earl was honoured with a most magnifi- 
cent funeral in the Minster or Collegiate Church 
of St. John, Beverley, in a chapel built expressly 
for the reception of his remains, and beneath a 
tomb with rich Gothic canopy, adorned with 
sculptured figures, and emblazoned with the 
multitude of quarterings of the family. The 
body, after having been embalmed, was conveyed 
to his Castle of Wressil, and hence to Leckonfield, 
whence it was taken to Beverley, accompanied 
by a long and splendid procession, all robed 
and accoutred at the expense of the family. 
There were twelve lords with " gownes at 10s. 
the yerd ; " twenty-four lords and knights " with 
gownes and hods ; " sixty squires and gentlemen 
" with gownes and typets ; " two hundred yeomen 
" in gownes ; " " one hundred gromes and gentle- 
men's servants in gownes." There were also 
the bearers of the great standard, twelve bearers 
of sarcenet banners " betyn with my Lord's 
armys," sixty bearers of " Scutchions of Buckram 



THE TOPGLIFFE INSURRECTION. 197 

betyn with my Lord's armys," and two officers of 
arms from the Herald's Office, London, to super- 
intend the armorial arrangements, who were paid 
£20 for " their helpe and payne." Besides these 
there were five hundred priests, one thousand 
clerks, and representatives from the neighbouring 
monasteries, all habited in mourning, and bearing 
crucifixes, other church ornaments, and vessels 
and emblems of mortality. Mingling with these 
were four hundred torch-bearers, and bringing up 
the rear, 13,340 poor persons, who received, 
according to the will, a funeral dole of twopence 
each. Altogether the cost amounted to 
£1,037 6s. 8d., equal to, at least, £10,000 of the 
present value of money. 

The body was met at the great west door of 
the Minster by the Provost, Vicars, Canons, 
choristers, and other officials of the Minster, who 
conducted the procession. A mournful anthem 
was chanted up the nave into the chancel, where 
a long and splendid service of masses and choral 
singing was performed, and the body lowered into 
its resting-place, amid the sobs and lamentations 
of those who had known and loved the Earl for 
his virtues. Of his tomb, with its " multiplicity 
of noble carved work and canopied arches," 



198 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

as described by Leland, there remain only the 
altar table, with its sides covered with armorial 
bearings, but without the figures which ranged 
round it in niches, and on the wall above the 
word " Esperance," the motto of the family, and 
" 1494," the date of the funeral. 




The Burning of Cottingham Castle. 

JOTTINGHAM is a well-built, pictur- 
esque village, midway between Hull 
and Beverley, on the ancient road, but 
a quarter of a mile distant from the modern 
highway. It is a place of great antiquity, dating 
from the ancient British period, and deriving its 
name from Ket, a Celtic female deity, with 
the Saxon suffixes of ing and ham. In the days 
of Edward the Confessor, it belonged to one 
Gamel, who is supposed to have held a Thursday 
market there ; and at the time of the Domesday 
Book, the manor, four miles in length, with five 
fisheries of 8,000 eels, was held by Hugh, son 
of Baldrick. 

It was granted by William the Conqueror to 
Robert de Stuteville, surnamed Front de Bceuf, 
from whom it descended to Robert de Stuteville, 
or d'Estoteville, who was Sheriff of Yorkshire, 
twenty-first Henry II., and from him to William 
de Stuteville, temp. John, who, for some offence, 



200 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

was excommunicated by the Archbishop of York. 
He appealed to the King, who came to 
Cottingham to investigate the matter, and in 
the sequel compelled the prelate to give him 
absolution. Moreover, he granted to de Stute- 
ville a charter empowering him to castellate his 
manor-house, and hold a weekly market and 
annual fair. 

Nicholas de Stuteville died seventeenth 
Henry III., leaving two daughters, Joan and 
Margaret, as his co-heiresses, the former of whom 
married Hugh de Wake, descended from Leofric, 
viceroy Earl of Mercia, and his wife the famous 
Godiva, and from Hereward le Wac (the Wake), 
Lord of Brunne, the last, and one of the most 
formidable, opponents of the Norman Duke 
William, in his conquest of England. John, his 
grandson, was summoned as a baron twenty- 
third Edward I., whose daughter, Margaret, 
married Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, 
third son of King Edward I., and had issue, Joan, 
" the fair maid of Kent," who inherited the 
Barony of Wake, which she transmitted to her 
issue by her first husband, Thomas de Holand, 
and which fell in abeyance in 1497, as it still 
continues. She married, secondly, Edward, the 



THE BURNING OF COTTINGHAM CASTLE. 201 

Black Prince, and by him was mother of King- 
Richard II. 

King Edward I. was celebrating Christmas 
with the Wakes at Cottingham, when, being out 
hunting, he came to Wyke-super-Hull, and, 
struck with its capabilities as a port, granted the 
charter which laid the foundation of its future 
greatness, and changed its name to Kingstown- 
upon-Hull ; and at the same time gave his host a 
charter of free warren over his manor, and 
authority to erect a gallows for the execution of 
criminals. Thomas, his son, in the following 
reign, obtained a charter of confirmation, with the 
privilege of holding a weekly market and two 
* annual fairs, and authority to convert his 
residence into a castle of defence, and to garrison 
it with armed men. This Thomas founded, 
adjacent to the castle, a monastery of Austin 
Friars, on a site with a defective title, in 
consequence of which it was removed to Haltem- 
price, on another part of the estate. 

The feudal barony was held in capite by the 
service of one barony, and consisted of 4,000 
acres, with £200 yearly rental from free tenants. 

It was a beautiful August day in the year 
1540. The reapers were in the fields about 



202 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Cottingham, sickle in hand, cutting down the 
golden corn, and lumbering wains with solid 
wooden wheels, and draw T n by oxen, were 
carrying away the sheaves to garner in the home- 
steads ; the fruit of a thousand trees in the 
orchards surrounding the village hung, rich and 
luscious, pendant from the boughs, and ripening 
to perfection under the bright sunshine. The 
village consisted of a scattering of cross-timbered 
houses with wattled and mud-walled frames, 
latticed windows, and thatched roofs. From the 
midst thereof rose in proud and lofty dignity the 
majestic walls, turrets, and bastions of the 
Stutevilles, the Wakes, and now of the Holands, 
surrounded by a moat, which was crossed by a 
drawbridge, and the entrance defended by a 
barbican and a portcullis. Upon its battlements 
might be seen three or four men-at-arms, 
lounging lazily about, and amusing themselves by 
watching the passage of vessels and boats up and 
down the Humber. The pleasant clack of the 
baronial mill, and the occasional uplifted voices of 
the denizens of the farm-yards and pastures, alone 
broke the silence of the slumberous summer 
afternoon. In a hamlet within ken of the out- 
lookers on the parapets of the castle might be 



THE BURNING OF COTTINGHAM CASTLE. 203 

seen the now deserted house of the Augustinian 
Friars, at Haltemprice ; for here no longer the 
Canons dropped their beads, muttered their 
prayers, or chanted their anthems ; the ruthless 
hand of Henry had driven them forth upon the 
wide world to become supplicants for charity, 
alongside those who had erstwhile found succour 
at their gate. The priory and site had in the 
present year been granted to Thomas Culpepper, 
but he had not yet taken possession, and it lay 
desolate and silent, as did, at the same time, 
many another noble abbey and priory, scattered 
over the face of England. 

Lord Wake, as he was called by courtesy, 
although he was only a tenure Baron, had been 
out in the direction of the now thriving town of 
Kingston-upon-Hull, and about the middle of the 
afternoon he came riding over the drawbridge, 
and passed through the arched gateway into the 
courtyard of his castle. Upon his fist he carried 
a favourite hawk, and he was accompanied by his 
falconer, and three or four liveried retainers. He 
leaped agilely from his horse, which was taken 
charge of by a groom, and, handing his hawk to 
the falconer, he passed through a portal to the 
domestic apartments, where he was met by his 



204 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

wife, a singularly beautiful woman, not much past 
the bloom of girlhood, and as modest, chaste, and 
pious as she was charming in feature, person, and 
demeanour. " What sport have you had this 
morning, husband mine ? " inquired she, after an 
affectionate embrace. " Excellent, " he replied; 
" my falcon has done wonders, he brought down a 
heron, who, from his size, must have been the 
patriarch of the shaw ; but, dearest life ! sport of 
that kind, brave as it may be, is as naught to the 
happiness I experience in thy dear society/' 
Other expressions of endearment of a similar 
kind passed as they sat down to dinner, com- 
posed chiefly of venison and boar's flesh. Lord 
Wake was a great hunter in the surrounding 
woods of his domain, and as he sat at dinner he 
was surrounded by half a dozen petted boar and 
stag hounds, who gambolled at will about the 
apartment, or sat on their haunches, looking up 
at their master in anxious expectation of stray 
bones, which were thrown to them with no 
niggard hand. 

The meal passed over almost in silence, which 
was only broken occasionally by remarks and dis- 
cussion on domestic topics ; but when it was 
finished, and Lady Wake had taken up her 



THE BURNING OF COTTINGHAM CASTLE. 205 

embroidery-frame, her husband told her that his 
sport had brought him to the gates of Kingstown, 
where he learnt that the King was in the town, 
who had arrived there unexpectedly. He was on 
his progress to York to meet his nephew, 
James V. of Scotland, and had come by a 
circuitous route " for fear of the enraged people," 
who, exasperated at the dissolution of the 
religious houses, and the King's assumption of 
supremacy over the Church, had two or three 
years previously raised a formidable insurrection, 
which they denominated the " Pilgrimage of 
Grace." The Mayor (Henry Thurcross), Lord 
Wake said, had sent the Sheriff to meet his 
Highness at the "boarded bridge" of Newland, 
on the confines . of the county of Hull ; had 
himself, with the aldermen, received him with 
great obeisance and due formalities at Beverley - 
gate, and had conducted him to the Manor Hall, 
the usual residence of Royalty when in the town, 
where he now was enjoying the splendid 
hospitality of the Corporation. 

" The caitiff," exclaimed Lady Wake, " what 
does he want down here ? His presence 
betokens no good, and woe betide those with 
whom he sojourns." 



206 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

" Bluff King Hal," as he was frequently termed, 
was no favourite with the better class of ladies ; 
and especially with such as were of a devout 
turn of mind, and were regular and punctual in 
the performance of their religious duties, as 
enjoined by their father-confessors. His 
propensity for chopping off the heads of his 
wives, or of divorcing them when a new beauty 
enthralled his amorous susceptibilities, caused 
him to be held in detestation by all right-minded 
women ; and his sacrilegious deposition of the 
Holy Father's authority in England, combined 
with his so-called brutal dispersion of the 
religious fraternities and sisterhoods of the 
realm, and unwarrantable plunder of the holy 
places of the land, caused him to be looked upon 
by the devout as an incarnation of Satan. Such 
were the views of Lady Wake, who felt keenly 
the loss of Haltemprice, which had been to her 
a sanctuary of heaven, and to which she had been 
a most generous benefactor. 

Whilst Lord and Lady Wake were conversing 
on this subject, the sound of a trumpet was heard 
outside, followed by the opening of the great 
gate at the summons, " In the King's name," 
and the clatter of a horse's hoofs over the draw- 



THE BURNING OF COTTINGHAM CASTLE. 207 

bridge and into the courtyard. Lord Wake 
hastened out and found an herald seated on 
horseback, who, when he announced himself as 
the lord of the castle, gave three blasts of his 
trumpet, and then delivered his message : — " His 
Highness the King Henry, the eighth of the 
name, by the grace of God, defender of the faith, 
and supreme head of the Church of England, 
to the Lord of the Barony of Cottingham, 
usually styled Lord Wake, greeting — It is His 
Highness's pleasure that on the morrow he will 
come, God willing, to Baynard Castle, and 
partake of the hospitality of the noble Baron and 
Lady Wake. God save the King." In the 
the course of conversation with the magnates of 
Hull, at the Manor Hall, he had made inquiry 
respecting persons of note residing in the 
neighbourhood, and Lord Wake was mentioned 
as keeping up a magnificent establishment within 
three or four miles of the gates of Hull, and as 
being blessed with a wife of surpassing beauty. 
The King's licentious propensities were at once 
aroused at hearing this. " Fore God," quoth he, 
" I will betake me thither, and with mine own 
eyes see whether this Yorkshire beauty is the 
paragon you represent her to be ; " and he 



208 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

summoned his herald into his presence and 
despatched him with the above message to 
Cottingham. 

Lord Wake was thrown into consternation at 
receiving the King's greeting and message, 
and, before giving an answer, went indoors to 
consult his wife. 

" Holy Mary ! " said she, " what a disaster ! 
We must avoid it in some way or other. Never 
will I meet the woman-slayer and desecrator of 
God's temples within these walls." 

" True," he replied, "we must find some means 
of averting it if possible, but meanwhile it will 
be necessary to send a civil and loyal reply," 
and returning to the courtyard, he bade the 
herald inform the King that he felt highly 
flattered at His Highness's condescension in 
proposing a visit to his humble house, and that 
on the following day preparations should be made 
for greeting him in the best way his humble 
means afforded. When the herald had departed, 
Lord Wake pondered deeply on the dilemma 
in which he found himself placed by the King's 
proffered visit. He felt that it was impossible, 
except by taking some desperate step, to evade 
it, but something must be done, as he felt 



THE BURNING OF COTTINGHAM CASTLE. 209 

assured that the honour of himself and that 
of his wife were at stake, well knowing, as he 
did, the unbridled passion of the King, and that 
if it were thwarted the most perilous consequences 
might ensue. The confiscation of his estates 
might be looked for in such case ; but better, 
thought he, lose my land, than my wife her 
honour. This train of thought led him to think 
of his castle, where he had lived so happily with 
the beloved of his heart, when suddenly the 
idea struck him — What if I burn down my 
castle ! The King could not come for entertain- 
ment amidst its ruined walls and smoking 
embers, and though I should sacrifice my home, 
I should preserve what is far dearer to me — my 
wife, pure and undefiled as when I led her to 
the altar. The more he thought of the project, 
the more fully he became assured of its practic- 
ability as an effectual bar of defence against the 
King's intentions. He submitted the idea to 
Lady Wake, who, without the slightest 
hesitation, concurred in the proposal. 

The seneschal of the castle was then called 
in — a faithful old retainer, who had been in 
the family for two or three generations of lords, 
and who might be intrusted with the keeping of 



210 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

any secret of his master. He was informed of 
the nature of the peril hanging over the family, 
and of the method projected by Lord Wake 
to avert the evil. He had been born and bred 
up in the castle ; knew every nook and corner of 
it ; loved it with a devoted affection, almost as if 
it had been a thinking, sentient being ; and 
could not without an excess of grief see it 
destroyed ; yet he recognised at once the 
necessity of the case, and not being able to devise 
an alternative, so as to save the old towers and 
walls, undertook, as proposed by his master, to 
fire the castle that night. 

Lord and Lady Wake then proceeded to pack 
up all the more portable articles of value, jewels, 
money, family papers, and heirlooms, which were 
conveyed secretly to the unoccupied Priory of 
Haltemprice, and thither they went themselves, 
issuing from a postern, and crossing the moat by 
means of a raft stationed there for the purpose. 
When the retainers, men-at-arms, and domestics, 
all save the sentinals on duty, had retired to rest, 
the seneschal, heaped together a quantity of 
combustible materials in proximity to a mass of 
old and dry woodwork panelling on the walls, 
which he set fire to. The flames soon caught 



THE BURNING OF COTTINGHAM CASTLE. 211 

hold of the woodwork, which, blazing up, got a 
complete hold of the building. He then rang 
the alarm-bell and roused up the sleepers, telling 
them that he had been awakened by the smell of 
burning. Of course all was done that could be 
done, under his direction, for the subjugation of 
the fire, but the appliances were so utterly 
inefficient, consisting merely of a line of men 
passing a chain of buckets from hand to hand 
after being filled from the moat, that the fire 
soon overcame all their efforts to extinguish it, 
and the roof soon after falling in, it blazed up into 
the midnight sky, illuminating the country for 
miles round. The flames were distinctly visible 
from Hull and Beverley, and numbers of persons 
from both towns hurried to the scene of disaster, 
but could afford no assistance, the fire having by 
that time gained such an ascendency that they 
could but stand and gaze, awe-stricken, on the 
scene of devastation. Intelligence was conveyed 
to the King the following morning of the " acci- 
dental " fire at Baynard Castle, and to show his 
sympathy he offered to contribute £2,000 
towards its restoration, which was respectfully 
declined by Lord Wake, and the King, after 
sundry measures for the improvement of the 



212 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

port of Kingstown, crossed the Humber and 
returned to London. 

The tradition adds, further, that this Lord 
Wake, dying without issue male, the manor was 
divided between his three daughters, who were 
respectively married to the Duke of Richmond, 
the Earl of Westmoreland, and Baron Powis, and 
that those portions thus acquired the names they 
still bear of Cottingham Richmond, Cottingham 
Westmoreland, and Cottingham Powis. 

Tradition, however, is prone to error, and in 
this narrative there are several discrepancies and 
anachronisms. There was then no Baron Wake, 
the barony having fallen into abeyance more 
than a century previously ; but the holder of the 
manor, being a feudal Baron, might bear the title 
by courtesy. Secondly, Leland saw the ruins of 
the burnt castle in 1538, two or three years 
before the visit of King Henry to Hull, and he 
mentions the division of the manor into four 
parts as having taken place previously, the 
fourth part being held by the King. 




The Alum Workers. 

1JESTLING in a lovely valley in the 



most romantic part of Cleveland lies 
|H the little town of Guisborough, with 
the mouldering ruins of its once famous Priory. 
At the time of the Conquest it consisted of three 
manors, which were given to the Earl of 
Moreton, and soon after, united into one manor, 
passed to Robert de Brus, Lord of Skelton, 
to hold in capite, by military service. In the 
year 1129 he founded the Priory for Canons 
of the Augustine order, and endowed it with a 
manor of twenty caracutes and two oxgangs, 
with the tenements, mill, and all other appur- 
tenances. It flourished apace, grew rich, and 
nurtured some learned and eminent men within 
its cloisters, until it fell beneath the ruthless axe 
of Henry VIII. 

The Chaloners of Guisborough are of Welsh 
descent, tracing their ancestry to Trayhayrne, son 
of Maloc Krwm, one of the fifteen peers of 



214 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Wales. His grandson, Madoc, otherwise 
Chaloner, was ancestor of Thomas Chaloner, 
of Beaumaris, one of whose sons was Roger 
Chaloner, a citizen and silk mercer of London, 
whose son, Sir Thomas, Knight (born 1521), was 
eminent as a statesman, diplomatist, and poet ; 
was employed on several embassies ; was 
knighted at the battle of Pinkie for bravery ; and 
was author of several esteemed works — " The 
Praise of Folly," " De Republica Anglorum," 
and many others. He purchased the manor of 
Guisborough of Sir Thomas Legh, to whom it 
had been granted at the Dissolution, for the sum 
of £998 13s. 4d. 

" These towering rocks, green hills, and spacious plains, 
Circled with wood, are Chaloner's domains. 
A generous race, from Cambro-Grimn traced, 
Fam'd for fair maids and matrons wise and chaste." 

His portrait was painted by Holbein and by 
Antonio More, the former engraved by Holler, 
the latter exhibited at Leeds in 1868. 

Sir Thomas, Knight, his son (born 1559, died 
1615), succeeded to the Guisborough estates, and 
was the discoverer of the alum mines. He was 
twice married, and had issue several children, of 
whom the eldest — William — was created baronet 



THE ALUM WORKERS. 215 

in 1620, by the title of Sir William Chaloner, 
Bart., of Guisborough, in the county of York; 
Rev. Edward, d.d., an eminent polemical writer; 
and Thomas and James, Parliamentarian officers 
and regicides. At college he gained some reputa- 
tion by his Latin and English verses, but was not 
equal to his father as a poet. He was, however, 
a good naturalist, at the time when the science 
was little understood and less studied. In 
1580-84, he made le grand tour, and spent some 
time in Italy, where he associated with all the 
most eminent literary and scientific men of the 
day. 

Being a keen observer of natural objects and 
phenomena, he had noticed that on a certain part 
of his Guisborough estate the soil never froze, 
that it was speckled with divers colours, chiefly 
yellow and blue, which sparkled in the sunshine, 
and that the trees and shrubs which grew thereon 
spread their roots laterally, and penetrated 
the earth very superficially, and that their leaves 
were of a peculiar tint of green. When in Rome 
he paid a visit to the Pope's alum works at 
Puzzeoli, where he noticed with his quick, 
observant eye that the earth and trees presented 
the same remarkable features as those on his 



216 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

Guisborough estate, and he immediately came to 
the conclusion that his land was impregnated 
with alum. He hastened back to England to 
test his hypothesis, which he soon verified by 
experiment, and saw that a mine of wealth lay 
beneath his feet. But how to work and prepare 
it he knew not, and there was no one in England 
who did, and scarcely any one in Europe, outside 
of Italy, which then had a monopoly of alum, and 
he set his wits to work to devise some means for 
separating it from the earth, and preparing it as a 
manufactured commodity for the market. 

Alum is a mineral salt found in clay and other 
earths, and is a valuable commodity used in 
various manufactures, and for other purposes. 
It was first extracted from the earth in which it 
was embedded, and prepared for use in the East, 
chiefly at Edessa, in Syria; afterwards near 
Constantinople ; and, on the fall of the Eastern 
Empire, the alum workers transferred the 
industry to Italy where it was established in 
various places, and was confined to the Peninsula 
for more than a century, after which it spread 
into Germany, France, and Flanders. The 
Popes had works at Rome and Civita Vecchia, 
and carefully guarded their secret, not allowing 



THE ALUM WORKERS. 217 

the workmen to leave the country on any pretence 
whatever, under pain of excommunication, as the 
profits of the sale brought a handsome revenue to 
their coffers. 

Sir Thomas Chaloner cogitated the matter in 
his mind, and the more he thought, the more he 
saw that the only mode of bringing his alum 
mines into operation was by kidnapping some of 
the Pope's workmen, a difficult and perilous task, 
but which he resolved to attempt, and with that 
view went again to Italy. Of course the best 
place for accomplishing his object was at Civita 
Vecchia, a seaport in the Papal States. Thither, 
therefore, he went, and lived in retirement, 
eluding observation as far as possible, but 
mingling, whenever he could, with the alum 
workers, ingratiating himself with them by means 
of wine, friendly and familiar converse, and the 
judicious distribution of money. By these means 
he became acquainted with their characters, 
and with their hopes and aspirations. Three of 
the more intelligent he singled out to work upon, 
but each one separately. He would take them 
into a wine-house and ply them well with the 
tongue-loosener, and then turn the conversation 
upon their occupation and future prospects. Of 



218 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

the three, one seemed to have some influence 
over the other two, who, to a certain extent, 
took their opinions from him, and re-echoed his 
sentiments ; and Sir Thomas shrewdly perceived 
that if he could win over this one, the others 
would follow, like sheep after the bell-wether. 
They were seated in a wine shop one day, talking 
over the alum workers' great grievance. " And 
so," said Sir Thomas, " you would really like to 
escape from this life of slavery ? " " I should, 
indeed," was the reply ; " work here is neither 
better nor worse than that of a galley-slave." 
" Why not escape, then, and fling off the chains 
that gall you ? " " Alas, sir," he replied, " we are 
too closely guarded and watched to render escape 
at all hopeful. Besides, money would be 
required, and of this we have but sufficient to get 
our daily bread." " But if anyone were to put 
the means of escape in your hands, would you be 
sufficiently daring to make the attempt ? " 
" Most certainly." " And you would not fear 
the Pope's excommunication, which would 
assuredly follow ? " " Look here, signor, 
although I am a poor ignorant alum worker, 
I know something of what has been doing in 
England and Germany, and have heard of 



THE ALUM WORKERS. 219 

Wickcliffe, Luther, and Calvin, and I should care 
no more for excommunication at the hands of the 
Pope than I should for a snap of his fingers." 

Chaloner saw he had got hold of the right 
man, and he gradually revealed to him his 
discovery of alum earth in England, and pro- 
posed that he should accompany him thither to 
work it, where he would be absolutely free, and 
promising him a much higher remuneration than 
he was receiving in Italy ; to which the man 
readily assented, and undertook to gain over the 
other two men, who he felt assured would 
accompany him. At a subsequent meeting of 
the four confederates the question was discussed 
as to the best mode of smuggling- them out of 
Italy, and, after several projects had been 
suggested and dismissed as impracticable, it was 
decided that they should be conveyed on board a 
vessel in casks, as merchandise, and liberated 
when out at sea. 

Sir Thomas at once set to work to find means 
for carrying out his project, the first being to 
find a vessel captained by one equally resolute 
with himself, and to whom he could venture to 
entrust his secret. Fortunately for his purpose, 
there chanced to be lying in the harbour 



220 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

a ship from the port of Hull, commanded 
by an honest fellow-Yorkshireman, a man 
who, as he said himself, " feared neither 
the Pope nor the Devil." With this 
captain he sought an interview, explained who he 
was, and by careful steps laid his scheme before 
him. The rough, weather-beaten old captain 
grasped him by the hand, and, giving it a 
vigorous shake, swore to stand by him " through 
thick and thin." He was waiting for a return 
cargo, had got his vessel half filled, and he 
agreed, whether full or not, to set sail on that 
day week. Sir Thomas then went into the 
market and purchased a quantity of grain, to be 
delivered on board in six days, packed in casks. 
He then caused three casks to be constructed 
secretly, with false ends to be filled with grain, 
leaving the central part open and pierced with 
holes, in great number, but so small as to be 
scarcely perceptible. On the sixth day, when the 
alum works were closed, the three men came to 
him, and were placed in the three casks, which, 
having passed the ordeal of the Customs Office 
without suspicion, were shipped, and at day- 
break the following morning the vessel was 
loosed from her moorings, spread her canvas, and 



THE ALUM WORKERS. 221 

bade adieu to Civita Vecchia. It was soon dis- 
covered at the alum works that the three were 
missing, and strict search was made for them, 
without result. At length it occurred to the 
authorities that they had escaped in the English 
vessel which had sailed that morning, and three 
ships were sent in pursuit of her, but she had 
several hours' start, and had a fair wind, and the 
pursuers never caught sight of her. The men 
were released from their uncomfortable berths 
when at a safe distance, and revelled in their 
feeling of liberty as they sped over the blue 
waves of the Mediterranean, across the Bay of 
Biscay, and up the Channel, arriving safely at 
Hull, whence they proceeded with Sir Thomas to 
Cleveland. 

Sir Thomas established his works beyond 
Bellemondegate, where now mountains of refuse 
shale are piled up. For some time the works 
yielded but small profit, and it was not until 
Chaloner got more workmen from Rochelle that 
they became a success, after which they yielded a 
handsome revenue, and had the effect of breaking 
down the Italian' monopoly, and reducing the 
price of alum in England to one-half its former 
cost. 



222 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

When Chaloner had got the mines and works 
into thorough working order, King Charles L, 
at the instigation of some of his rapacious 
courtiers, made a claim to them as Crown 
property, and he was compelled to surrender 
them. They were then let to Sir Paul Pindar, 
at a rent of £12,500 per annum, to be paid into 
the Royal Exchequer, besides £1,600 per annum 
to the Earl of Mulgrave and £600 per annum to 
Sir William Pennyman, but they were restored 
to the Chaloner s by the Long Parliament. 
Eight hundred men were employed on the works, 
and the alum sold at £26 per ton, which left a 
large residue of profit. Other mines were dis- 
covered in Cleveland, on the estates of the 
families of Phipps, Pennyman, Fairfax, D'Arcy, 
and Cholmley, when competition brought down 
the price, and consequently reduced the profits ; 
and, as some of these were situated nearer the 
sea-coast, with greater facilities for shipment, the 
Guisborough mines became less and less profit- 
able, and were eventually abandoned. 

This conduct on the part of King Charles 
caused the Chaloners to become zealous 
Parliamentarians in the Civil War. Sir 
Thomas's sons, James and Thomas, drew their 



THE ALUM WORKERS. 223 

swords against the Kino-, and both sat as 

© ©' 

members of the High Court of Justice for his 
trial. The former was tried as a regicide after 
the Restoration, was condemned to death, and 
drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn for execution, but 
received a reprieve when the halter was round 
his neck ; was remitted to the Tower, and died of 
poison, it was reported, by his own hand, " an 
invention," says Markham, in his Life of Fairfax, 
"of the carrion vultures of the Restoration." 

The latter, at the Restoration, was included in 
the list of those excluded from pardon, but saved 
his life by flight. Winstanley says of him, " He 
had travelled far in the world, and returned 
home poysoned with that Jesuitical doctrine of 
King-killing, which he put in practice, being the 
great speech-maker against the King, 
and a great stickler for their new Utopian 
Commonwealth, but upon His Majestie's return 
fled, his actions being so bad as would not endure 
the touchstone." 



The Maiden of Marblehead, 




NE fine summer's morning, in the year 
of grace 1742, the little inn of the 
little town of Marblehead was in 
a state of great bustle, in anticipation of the visit 
of some Government officials from Boston to dine 
there. The landlady, rather vixenish in temper 
and tongue, was busily occupied in attending 
to the culinary department, and at intervals 
scolding a young girl of sixteen, who was 
scrubbing the floor, and was the maid-of-all-work 
in the establishment, working from early in the 
morning till late at night for a small pittance of 
wages. 

Marblehead was a small fishing town or village 
about sixteen miles from Boston, in New 
England, consisting of a cluster of log-built and 
straw-thatched houses, amongst which stood con- 
spicuously forth the little hostelry, in con- 
sequence of its sign of King George the Second's 
head swinging and creaking from a crossbeam 



THE MAIDEN OF MARBLEHEAD. 225 

over the highway. The inhabitants were almost 
entirely of Guernsey descent, a brave people, but 
not so loyal as the sign of their inn would seem 
to indicate, as after the war of the Revolution 
there were in the town 600 widows of patriots 
who had fallen; and, in the war of 1812, 500 
Marblehead men were prisoners of war in 
England. The washing of the floor was not 
completed when the sound of horses' feet was 
heard coming along the road, and in a few 
minutes three gentlemen alighted at the door, 
gave their horses in charge of an extemporised 
ostler, and entered the house. The landlady 
made a profound curtsy to her guests, and at the 
same time rated her hand-maiden for not having 
the room ready for the gentlemen. " Don't scold 
her," said he who appeared to be the chief of the 
group ; " I dare say the little lassie has done her 
best, and perhaps we have arrived earlier than we 
were expected." The girl, who was dressed in 
homely attire, and without shoes or stockings, 
turned her head with a silent glance of thanks to 
the speaker — a glance which he pronounced to 
himself to be angelic. 

The gentleman who thus came upon the scene 
was a Mr. Charles Henry Frankland, thirty-six 



226 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

years of age, and slightly bronzed in feature from 
his early residence in Bengal, where he was born. 
He was the eldest son of the Governor of 
Bengal, Henry Frankland, who had been 
brother and heir-presumptive of Sir Thomas 
Frankland, third baronet of Thirkleby, in York- 
shire, but he had died in 1736, leaving this son 
heir-presumptive to the baronetcy in his place. 
In 1741 he had been appointed Collector of the 
Customs at the port of Boston, and on this 
summer's morning, with two subordinates was 
paying a professional visit to Marblehead, which 
lay within the Boston collection. The more he 
saw of the girl, as she waited at table during 
dinner, the more was he struck with the beauty 
of her features and the faultless symmetry of her 
figure. As was said of her, " Her ringlets were 
black and glossy as the raven ; her dark eyes 
beamed with light and loveliness, and her voice 
was musical and bird-like." He entered into 
conversation with her, and found that her name 
was Agnes Surriage, and that her parents, of a 
humble position in life, dwelt at a neighbouring 
village. He was charmed with the modest and 
intelligent replies she made to his questions, but 
found that she was altogether uneducated, and 



THE MAIDEN OF MARBLEHEAD. 227 

had learnt nothing excepting how to perform 
household work, to sew and knit, and "to go to 
meeting on Sundays." On leaving, he gave her 
money to buy herself shoes and stockings ; but on 
his next visit he found her again bare-legged, and 
asking her why she had not supplied herself with 
shoes and stockings, she replied that she had 
done so, but kept them to go to " meeting" in. 

Becoming more and more fascinated with her 
beauty, he at length asked her parents to allow 
him to take her to Boston and have her 
educated, to which they consented, after some 
hesitation. He caused her to be instructed in 
reading, writing, drawing, music, dancing, and all 
the accomplishments of a fine lady ; but although 
she excelled eventually in sketching, playing, 
and dancing, and wrote a beautiful hand, she 
could never master the difficulties of ortho- 
graphy, her spelling to the last being always of 
an original and curiously eccentric character. 

When her education was completed, and she had 
grown to womanhood, he took her to his home as 
his mistress, and she bore him a son, who was 
christened Richard Cromwell. She was, how- 
ever, looked upon askance by the Quaker circles 
of Boston, not on account of her lowly birth, but 



228 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

because of her disreputable connection with her 
" protector." Sir Thomas Frankland, third 
baronet, died without male issue, in 1747, and 
Charles Henry, his nephew, succeeded as fourth 
baronet. Seven years after, he returned to 
England, with Agnes and his son, to dispute the 
will of the late baronet as to the disposition of 
the family estates at Thirkleby, near Easingwold. 
Sir Thomas made three wills; the first in 1741, 
wherein he left a slender provision for his widow, 
leaving the estates to his heir-male. In the 
second, made in 1744, he left Thirkleby to his 
widow for life, to pass at her death to the then 
holder of the baronetcy ; and by the third will, 
dated 1746, he left her the estates, producing 
£2,500 per annum, and the whole of his person- 
alty absolutely, and to dispose of as she chose. 
It was contended that the last will was made 
when he was in an unsound state of mind and 
under undue influence, and a lawsuit ensued, 
resulting in the setting aside of the third and the 
confirmation of the second will. The lawsuit 
gained, Sir Charles and Agnes went for a tour 
on the Continent, and in the month of Novem- 
ber, 1755, were sojourning in the city of Lisbon. 
On the 1st of that month, the sun rose, shining 



THE MAIDEN OF MARBLEHEAD. 229 

with almost unusual brightness, and the streets 
were filled with people going hither and thither 
on matters of religion, business, and pleasure, 
little dreaming of, and with nothing to indicate, 
the catastrophe which was to befall their city. 
The Franklands had breakfasted at their hotel, 
and Sir Charles, donning a Court suit, started off 
in a carriage with a lady to witness the cele- 
bration of High Mass in the Cathedral, leaving 
Agnes at the hotel. They had not proceeded 
far, and were passing in front of a lofty building, 
when, without warning, the terrible earthquake 
occurred, which in eight minutes laid the city in 
ruins, and swallowed up 50,000 of its inhabitants. 
The lofty building came crashing dowm, and 
buried the carriage and its occupants. What 
became of the lady is not known, but the horses 
were killed, and Sir Charles lay bruised and 
wounded beneath the ruins for an hour. In full 
expectation of death, he reflected on his past life, 
and, concluding that he was undergoing a judg- 
ment of God for his misdeeds, and especially for 
having lived in a state of concubinage, made a vow 
that if he should be rescued, he would show his 
repentance by marrying the partner of his guilt. 
Agnes had escaped unhurt, and when the first 



230 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

shock had passed, fearful that some mischance 
had befallen him, rushed out in the direction of 
the cathedral, regardless of the still falling 
houses, in search of him. As she was clambering 
over a heap of ruins, she heard moans issuing 
from beneath, and a voice which she recognised 
as that of her beloved one. She immediately 
got together a party of diggers, and, by promises 
of high rewards, succeeded in extricating him, 
and after his wounds had been dressed, conveyed 
him to Belem, where, in process of time, he 
recovered, and where their marriage was cele- 
brated. 

Sir Charles returned to Boston; but in 1757 
he was appointed Consul-General to Portugal, 
and again came to Lisbon. In 1763 he resumed 
his duties at Boston, retaining his consulship, 
although absent, until 1767, when he returned to 
England, and died the following year, being 
succeeded in the baronetcy by his brother 
Thomas. 

Lady Frankland returned to New England 
with her son, and they resided upon an estate at 
Hopkinson which she had inherited through her 
parents, but at the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tionary war in 1775, she, being a Royalist, came 



THE MAIDEN OF MARBLEHEAD. 231 

to England, and, in 1782, married Mr. John 
Drew, a banker at Chichester, and died in 1783. 

Richard Cromwell, her son, entered the naval 
service of England, but retired on his ship being 
ordered to America, as he felt unwilling to fight 
against his native land. In 1796 he was living in 
Chichester with a family growing up around him. 

In 1865 there was published at Albany, "Sir 
Charles Henry Frankland, Bart. ; or, Boston in 
the Colonial Times ; by Elias Nason, m.a.," 
who, in the preface, says — " Who was Sir C. H. 
Frankland ? is a question which a brief story 
entitled ' A legend of New England/ and pub- 
lished by William Lincoln, in 1843, and still more 
recently the ballad of ' Agnes,' by Dr. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes here, led the public to 
entertain : Was he a real person' or a myth ? 
Was there ever such a collector of the port of 
Boston ? Was he indeed buried under the ruins 
of Lisbon at the time of the great earthquake ? 
Was he rescued therefrom by the efforts of a 
poor girl, named Agnes Surriage, and did he 
afterwards make her his wife ? " These questions 
the author answers in the subsequent pages of 
the pamphlet, of which the above is an 
epitome. 



Rise of the House of Phipps. 



j|BOUT ^ ne middle of the seventeenth 
century, during the Civil War and 
the Restoration, there dwelt in 
Bristol one James Phipps, a gunsmith by trade. 
He was blessed with a numerous progeny ; of 
him it might truly be said that " his quiver was 
full of them," for he had eventually twenty-six 
children, of whom twenty-one were boys. 
Having only his gunmaking trade to depend 
upon for a living, he found it difficult to provide 
means for feeding, clothing, and educating them, 
and often lay awake long at nights, pondering in 
his mind what he should do to meet the 
necessities of the case. At that time, and for 
two or three reigns previously, we had been at 
work laying the foundations of the present great 
American Republic, by establishing plantations 
of colonists, aristocratic and Episcopalian, in the 
south, and Puritanical in the north, most of 
whom had been driven thither by the persecu- 



RISE OF THE HOUSE OF PHIPPS. 233 

tions they had undergone in the mother country. 
Bristol was then the great port of imports and 
exports of the Western Continent, and James 
Phipps naturally heard of the unbounded 
capabilities of the new continent, as also he heard, 
by tradition, of the vast wealth which the 
buccaneers of Elizabeth's reign — the old Vikings 
of Devonshire — brought from the West Indies, 
Peru, Mexico, etc., into the ports of Bristol, 
Barnstaple, Bideford, etc., and it occurred to him 
that here was scope enough for him and all his 
sons, and he emigrated with them to New 
England, where William, his youngest son, was 
born, and he seems to have died soon after, as 
this son is stated to have been brought up by his 
mother until he was eighteen years of age. 

This William Phipps was the founder of that 
family who are now lords of Mulgrave Castle, 
and whose dignity has culminated in a 
Marquisate. He had received no education, 
but taught himself to read and write when 
apprentice to a ship carpenter. At the expira- 
tion of his apprenticeship he married the 
daughter of Captain Robert Spencer, and relict 
of a rich merchant of the name of Hull, who 
brought him a small fortune, with which he 



234 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

commenced business, but his speculations were 
not successful. But he did not despair, although 
fortune did seem to frown. He was a man 
of unbounded enterprise and energy, and he said 
to his wife, who was lamenting the loss of her 
money, " Be not cast down, my dear ; I will live 
to be the commander of better men than I myself 
am now. Providence has great things in store for 
me, and the time shall come when I will build a 
fair brick house in the green lane of North 
Boston, of which' you shall be the mistress." 
When casting about for employment, he chanced 
to hear of a Spanish galleon, laden with specie 
and plate, which had been wrecked half a century 
previously somewhere in the Bahamas, and he 
resolved to go in search of it, and to endeavour 
the recovery of the cargo by means of the diving- 
bell. 

Aristotle, 300 years B.C., makes some obscure 
references to a machine of this kind, but what it 
was or how employed is not known. The first 
reliable account we have of such a machine 
is given by Taisnier, who describes a " cacobus 
aquaticus" (marine kettle) which was exhibited 
by two Greeks before the Emperor Charles V., 
at Toledo, in 1538 ; but it seems to have been of 



RISE OF THE HOUSE OF P HIP PS. 235 

no practical use, as it had no apparatus for 
supplying the divers with fresh air. A similar 
sort of bell, but constructed on better principles, 
had been made use of on the coast of Mull, 
between the years 1650 and 1660 to operate 
upon some sunken vessels of the Spanish Armada, 
but without much success. It was this which 
directed the attention of Phipps to the diving- 
bell, who perceived that by various modifications 
and improvements of the apparatus it might be 
made a most valuable instrument for submarine 
operations, and after a long and patient study, 
and numberless experiments, he succeeded in 
constructing a bell very much the same as that 
now used, and capable of being worked much 
more efficiently and with greater safety than any 
previously employed. In consequence of his 
having thus, by his skill and scientific modifica- 
tions, produced a really working machine, he is 
generally styled " the inventor of the diving-bell." 
He sailed for the Bahamas, but was not able to 
find the spot where the vessel lay. He received 
information of another, however, the position 
of which was more accurately denned, and which 
held a much greater treasure. 

He then sailed for London, his resources having 



236 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

failed, where he arrived in 1683, and laid the 
project before King Charles, who furnished him 
with a 19-gun frigate, in which he returned to 
the Bahamas. Before he found the locality of 
the object of his search, he again became crippled 
for funds, and went again to London for further 
assistance, but King James, who had succeeded 
to the crown in the interval, deeming his views 
visionary, declined having anything to do in the 
matter. The Duke of Albemarle, however, was 
more sanguine and got up a subscription for a 
fresh outfit, on condition that he and the 
subscribers should share in the proceeds, and 
Captain Phipps sailed with two vessels. This 
time he was more successful ; after some search he 
found the precise spot where the galleon lay, and, 
by means of his diving-bell, brought up from the 
wreck thirty-two tons of silver, besides gold plate 
and jewels, of the estimated value of £200,000. 
With this splendid prize he came again to 
England, but on a division of the spoil, he 
got no more than £20,000, the Duke absorbing 
£90,000, whilst the remainder was distributed 
amongst the other subscribers and the 
crews of the vessels. The King, in appreciation 
of his ingenuity and enterprise, knighted him, and 



RISE OF THE HOUSE OF PHIPPS. 237 

constituted him Sheriff of New England. He 
made a second visit to the wreck, and made a 
gleaning of what had been left, and on his return 
to New England he built the " fair brick house in 
the green lane of North Boston," where he dwelt 
some time with his wife, now Lady Phipps, who 
no longer twitted him about the loss of her 
fortune. He afterwards served in the army, and 
was appointed, by William III., Governor of 
Massachusetts ; but two years after, refusing to 
sanction certain corrupt practices, he was 
charged by his enemies with maladministration 
of his government. He went to London to 
clear himself of the false charges, but died there 
soon after his arrival, in 1694, and was buried in 
the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, 
where his widow erected a sumptuous monument 
to his memory, with a sculptured representation of 
his achievements in the Bahamas. 

Not having any issue by his wife, he adopted 
Constantine, her nephew, and at his death 
bequeathed to him the bulk of his fortune. He 
- is said generally, in the genealogies of the family, 
to have been Phipps's own son ; but in " The 
Life of his Excellency Sir William Phipps, Kt., 
late Captain-General and Governor-in- Chief of 



238 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

.the Province of Massachusetts Bay, New 
England, 1697," which was published during the 
lifetime of his widow, it is said distinctly, " not 
having any child of his own, he adopted a 
nephew of his wife to be his heir." Sir 
Constantine Phipps, his nephew, who assumed 
the name of Phipps on inheriting his uncle's 
property, became Lord High Chancellor of 
Ireland, was knighted, and died in 1728. 
William, his son, married the Lady Katherine, 
daughter of James, fourth Earl of Anglesey, by 
the Lady Katherine Darnley, a natural daughter 
of King James II., who re-married John 
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Duke and 
Marquis of Normandy, and Earl of Mulgrave. 
Constantine, his son, who died 1780, was created 
Baron Mulgrave of New Boss, in the Peerage of 
Ireland, in 1768. Constantine, his son, second 
Baron, was the famous navigator, who made a 
voyage of discovery into the Arctic regions, 
and was, in the Pitt Administration, Joint 
Paymaster of the Forces, a Lord of Trade, 
and a Commissioner of the India Board. 
He was created, in 1790, Baron Mulgrave, 
of Mulgrave Castle, in the Peerage of 
England, but, dying issueless in 1792, that 



RISE OF THE HOUSE OF PHIPPS. 239 

title expired. His portrait may be seen 
in Greenwich Hospital. 

Henry, his brother, succeeded as third Baron 
Mulgrave of New Ross, and in his person the 
Barony of Mulgrave, of Mulgrave Castle, was 
re-created in 1794. He was further created 
Viscount Normanby and Earl of Mulgrave, in 
1812, and G.C.B. He was Governor of Scar- 
borough Castle and Foreign Secretary, 1805-6, 
and died in 1831. Constantine Henry, his son, 
succeeded to all his father's titles, and was 
advanced in the Peerage to the Marquisate of 
Normanby, in 1838. His Lordship, who died in 
1863, was an eminent statesman and diplomatist, 
wasconstitutedP.C.,1832;GC.H.,1832;GC.B., 
1847; and KG, 1851, and held the following 
offices: — Governor- General of Jamaica, 1832-34 ; 
Lord Privy Seal, July to November, 1834; 
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 1835-39 ; Secretary 
of State for the Colonies, September to Decem- 
ber, 1839 ; Home Secretary, 1839-41 ; was 
Minister at Paris, 1846-52 ; Envoy Extraordinary 
and Minister Plenipotentiary at Florence, 1854- 
58 ; and represented Scarborough in Parliament, 
1818-20, Higham Ferrers, 1822-26, and Malton, 
1826-30. He was a man of accomplished literary 



240 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

taste, having published " A Year of Revolution," 
from a journal kept in Paris, in the year 1848, 
2 vols., 1857. Also several novels — "Yes and 
No," "Matilda," "The Contrast," " Clorinde," 
and " The Prophet of St. Paul's," and several 
political pamphlets of great ability, with some 
other minor works. George Augustus Constan- 
tine, his son, the second Marquis was a K.C.MG. 
and P.C. ; was M.P. for Scarborough, 1847-21 ; 
Treasurer of the Household, 1853-58; a Lord-in- 
Waiting in 1866 and 1868-69; Captain of the 
Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, 1869-71 ; Gover- 
nor of Nova Scotia, 1858-66 ; of Queensland, 
1871-74; of New Zealand, 1874-78; and of 
Victoria, 1878-84. He died in 1890, and was 
succeeded by his son, the Pev. Constantine 
Charles Henry, the present Marquis, who was 
born in 1846. 



The Traitor Governor of Hull. 




CTOBEB the thirtieth, 1640, was a 
day of great bustle and excitement in 
the town of Beverley. All ordinary 



business seemed to be suspended, and the streets 
were filled with groups of people, 'in earnest 
discussion, and with persons hastening hither and 
thither as if on important business, whilst great 
crowds of burghers occupied the space in front of 
the old Hanse House or Guildhall, waiting for 
the opening of the doors. It was the day 
appointed for the election of representatives to 
Parliament, and as such an event had not taken 
place since 1628, excepting that of the spring 
of the present year, for the Parliament which 
lasted only twenty-eight days, combined with the 
irritating circumstances which had caused the 
issue of the writs, the excitement and the depth 
of party feeling between the Puritans and the 
upholders of the policy of Wentworth and Laud, 
was all the more intense. The King had striven 



242 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

to rule and levy taxes absolutely and irresponsibly, 
contrary to the Constitution ; and the murmurs 
and opposition became so great as to compel him 
to summon together the representatives of the 
Commons to sanction his acts, and grant the 
necessary subsidies. Hence were the burgesses 
of Beverley- summoned together to elect their 
representatives to what came to be called in after 
time "The Long Parliament." In due course 
they were admitted into the hall, and presently 
after the Mayor, William Cheppelow, a mercer, 
entered, and took his seat as Returning-Officer. 
He was accompanied by the Recorder, Francis 
Thorpe, the Aldermen, the Capital Burgesses, 
and the usual officials. After the reading of the 
writ and other preliminaries, he asked if any one 
had a candidate to propose, when a burgess 
proposed Sir John Hotham, " our old representa- 
tive, who has served us faithfully in four previous 
Parliaments." Another proposed Michael 
Warton, Esq., " our worthy townsman, whose 
principles are well known to us all ; " and a third 
proposed Sir Thomas Metham, Knight, all which 
proposals were seconded, and the polling 
proceeded with, the result being the return of the 
two former, who, the following day, posted up 



THE TRAITOR GOVERNOR OF HULL. 243 

to London to take their seats at the opening of 
the House on the third of November. 

Sir John Hotham was a descendant of Sir 
John de Trehouse, Knight, of Kilkenny, who, 
for his services at the Battle of Hastings, had a 
grant of the Manor of Hotham, near Beverley. 
Peter, his great-grandson, assumed the name of 
" de Hotham," and his descendant, Sir John, 
w^as summoned as Baron in 1315-, which dignity 
became extinct at his death, as it was a personal 
summons only. The family subsequently became 
possessors of South Dalton and Scorborough, 
both in the neighbourhood of Beverley, which 
were now held by Sir John, who made the 
mansion at the latter village his place of 
residence. He was born towards the end of the 
sixteenth century, was made a baronet in 1621, 
and had been five times married. He was now 
destined, by reason of his return to the Long 
Parliament, to make his name famous in English 
history, or, as some might say, infamous. He 
was not disaffected towards the King and his 
policy ; what he did in opposition thereto he 
deemed to be his duty to the Parliament of 
which he was a member, of which, however, 
he afterwards repented, impelled partly also 



244 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

by jealousy at the appointment of Lord Fairfax 
to the command of the forces in the north, 
which, he considered, ought to have been given to 
him, an old experienced soldier, who had served 
for a long time in the Low Countries, and had 
fought under the banner of the Elector Palatine 
at the Battle of Prague. 

At the neighbouring town of Hull there was 
at this time a great store of arms and ammuni- 
tion, which had been deposited there for the use 
of the troops in the Scottish expedition, when 
the King went thither to attempt to cram 
the Liturgy down the throats of the Presbyterian 
Scots. It had been under the charge of Colonel 
Legge, who, on the disbandment of the army, 
left it under the care of the Mayor of Hull. 
When the rupture between the King and the 
Parliament was coming to a crisis, the former 
went with his Court to York, his secret object 
being to get possession of the magazine ; and the 
Parliament, suspecting his motive for going 
north, sent Sir John Hotham and his son, 
Captain John Hotham, to take charge of it, and 
not to deliver it up on any consideration, 
excepting by their order. This occurred 
in March, 1642. Captain Hotham, his 



THE TRAITOR GOVERNOR OF HULL. 245 

son, represented Scarborough in the Long 
Parliament. 

In March, the King had sent the Earl of 
Newcastle to take charge of Hull and the 
magazine of arms, but the Mayor declined 
delivering up his trust, and the following month 
the King proceeded thither in person, to demand 
admittance, attended by a suite of noblemen and 
gentlemen. When he appeared before the town, 
he found the gates shut, the drawbridges raised, 
and the walls swarming with men-at-arms. He 
caused a trumpet to be sounded for a parley, 
when Sir John Hotham, the new governor, 
accompanied by the Mayor, appeared over 
Beverley Gate. He had previously sent Sir Louis 
Dives from Beverley with a message that he was 
coming with some noblemen to dine with Sir 
John, who held a hurried consultation with 
Alderman Pelham, a Member of the Parliament, 
when they determined upon not admitting him, 
and upon placing a guard over the Mayor and 
burgesses, and sent a reply that he could not 
admit him without a betrayal of the trust 
reposed in him by the Parliament. When Sir 
John appeared over the gate, the King 
demanded admittance, and asked angrily why the 



246 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

gate was shut against him. Sir John replied, " I 
am sorry to disobey your Majesty, but I am 
intrusted by the Parliament with the charge of 
this garrison, with instructions to admit no one 
who comes with apparently hostile intentions, 
and I trust that I may not be misunderstood, for 
nothing is meant in it but the good of the king- 
dom and the welfare of your Majesty." •" Pray, 
Sir John, by what authority do you act thus 
disloyally ? " " By order of both Houses of 
Parliament." " Head or show me that 
authority." " I decline doing so." " Has the 
Mayor seen it ? " " No ! I scorn that he should. 
I am the Governor of the town, and it concerns 
no one else." 

The King then asked the Mayor if he 
sanctioned this treasonable conduct, who, terrified 
and abashed in the presence of Royalty, fell on 
his knees and replied, " My liege ! glad should I 
be to open the gates if it were in my power ; but, 
alas ! both I and the inhabitants are under guard, 
and soldiers, with drawn swords, threaten our 
lives if we make the attempt." 

" Well, Sir John," said the King, " this act of 
yours is unparalleled, and will, I fear, lead to 
dismal consequences, and I cannot do less than 



THE TRAITOR GOVERNOR OF HULL. 247 

proclaim and proceed against you as a traitor ; 
but I will give you an hour to decide." He then 
retired, and, on his return, found the Governor in- 
flexible in his refusal to admit him, excepting 
with a following of not more than twenty persons, 
upon which he caused a herald to proclaim him 
a traitoir, and all who abetted him guilty of 
treason, shouting, " Fling the traitor over the 
walls ! Throw the rebel into the ditch," after 
which he retired to Beverley, and spent the night 
there. The following morning he sent a 
messenger with a promise of pardon for the past, 
and his favour for the future, if Sir John would 
open the gates to him, and when he received a 
negative answer he returned to York. The 
King then sent a complaint to Parliament of Sir 
John's conduct, who replied that he had done 
quite right, and that his proclamation of him as a 
traitor was a flagrant breach of the privilege of 
Parliament. 

As the King could not obtain admission to the 
town by persuasive means, he resorted to force, 
and laid siege to it, and the Parliament sent an 
additional force of 2,000 men to maintain the de- 
fence. About this time, Lord Digby, a Poyalist, 
was captured and brought into Hull, who, in 



248 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

repeated conversations with Sir John on the evils 
he was bringing upon the kingdom, half per- 
suaded him to admit the King ; but eventually 
he resolved not to betray his trust. Neverthe- 
less he facilitated the escape of his lordship, and 
this was what first caused him to be viewed with 
suspicion by the Parliament. Soon after, the 
King went into the Midlands, and set up his 
standard at Nottingham, leaving the siege of 
Hull in the hands of Lord Newport, and the civil 
war commenced in earnest. Captain Hotham, a 
dashing and dare-devil officer, left Hull with a 
small force, had a brush with and was defeated 
by Glemham, on the Wolds ; frightened Arch- 
bishop Williams from Cawood, who fled to 
Wales, and never saw his diocese again ; disputed 
the passage of the Tees with Newcastle, and 
again at Tadcaster against an overwhelming 
force ; and assisted Sir T. Fairfax in the capture 
of Leeds. 

By various instrumentalities, the Hothams, 
father and son, had now veered round from the 
Parliamentarian to the Royalist side. The 
younger had met the Queen when she landed at 
Burlington, kissed her hand, and promised obedi- 
ence to the King's will ; and the elder had been 



THE TRAITOR GOVERNOR OF HULL. 249 

in correspondence with Newcastle, and had under- 
taken to deliver up Hull on the 28th of August. 
But all this had come to the ears of 
Parliament, and measures were at once taken to 
frustrate his intentions. Orders were sent to 
Thomas Kaikes, the Mayor, Sir Matthew Boynton, 
Hotham's brother-in-law, and Captain Meyer, 
commander of a vessel of war in the Humber, to 
arrest him and his son, and send them up to 
London, and they lost no time in the matter. 
Captain Meyer landed one hundred men, who 
seized the citadel and the block-house, and they 
placed a watch round Sir John's house. Captain 
Hotham they captured without difficulty, and 
placed in security during the night, and at 
daylight went to Sir John's house to take 
him, but found he had effected his escape. 

Too old a soldier to be caught in a trap like 
that, and too old in strategy not to be able to de- 
vise means of extrication from a peril, he, 
having learned from his spies what was passing, 
and seeing that matters were coming to a crisis, 
determined upon flying to his house at 
Scorborough, which was fortified and able to 
stand a short siege. He eluded the watch by 
passing out by a private door at the back, and 



250 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

made his way, by obscure lanes and streets, to 
Beverley Gate. When he arrived there he was 
saluted by the guard, who knew nothing of the 
order for his arrest, and, assuming a lofty unem- 
barrassed bearing, he ordered the gate to be 
opened and six of the guards to follow him to 
Beverley. He was immediately obeyed, and, 
securing a horse, he rode off in the direction of 
Beverley ; but as soon as he had purposely out- 
ridden his attendants, he turned to the right, 
through Sculcoates, towards Stone Ferry. His 
pursuers meanwhile learnt what had passed at 
the gate, and rode after him along the Beverley 
road. They overtook the six guards, who 
informed them that Sir John could not be more 
than a few furlongs ahead on the road, and they 
spurred on towards Beverley without overtaking 
the fugitive. 

Sir John's house lay three or four miles 
beyond Beverley, on the west of the river Hull, 
and as he knew it would be dangerous to pass 
through the town, he resolved to cross the river 
and proceed along the eastern side, and re-cross it 
when he had passed Beverley. Unfortunately, 
when he came to Stone Ferry, there was no boat, 
and the river was running too rapidly to allow 



THE TRAITOR GO VERNOR OF HULL. 251 

of swimming his horse across ; he therefore 
hastened on to Wawn Ferry, hoping to cross 
there, but the fates seemed to be against him ; 
there was no boat there either, and the hazard 
was too great to attempt reaching the opposite 
bank by any other means. He paused for a few 
minutes, thinking over what course he should 
pursue. There appeared to be nothing for it but 
to make a bold dash through Beverley. It was 
true that the town was held by the Parliament- 
arians, but they might not have heard of the 
events which had transpired in Hull. Besides, 
there was no alternative, and putting spurs to his 
horse's flanks, he soon came in sight of the towers 
of Beverley Minster. He entered the town by 
Queensgate, and passing along the streets with 
an air of indifference, came to the Market-place, 
which he found occupied by a troop of 700 or 800 
men, with his nephew, Colonel Boynton, at their 
head. With an assumed nonchalant air, he 
saluted his nephew, and ordered a company of the 
men to follow, which they were preparing to do, 
when the Colonel, who had been made acquainted 
with his treachery, came up, and seizing his 
horse's bridle, said, " Sir John, you are my 
prisoner. I respect you as my kinsman, but I 



252 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

must, although with the greatest reluctance, pass 
by all tender respect, and arrest you as a traitor 
to the Commonwealth." Sir John, seeing that 
resistance was useless, replied, " Well, kinsman, 
since such is your will I must be content and sub- 
mit," but, espying a lane close by, he clapped 
spurs to his horse and galloped down it, followed 
by his nephew, shouting " Down with the 
traitor ; knock him down ; " and a soldier, 
striking him with the butt end of his musket, 
brought him to the earth, bleeding and almost 
senseless. By a strange coincidence, he was 
confined for the night in the same house where 
the King had slept after his discomfiture at the 
gates of Hull. The following morning he was 
taken to Hull, placed on board Captain Meyer's 
vessel, and, with his son, immediately conveyed to 
London. On the 3rd of December they w^ere 
arraigned at the Guildhall for treason, the Earl 
of Manchester presiding, and were sentenced to 
be executed on the last day of the year. The 
House of Lords, desirous of pardoning him, 
reprieved Sir John for three days ; but the Com- 
mons would not listen to it. Captain Hotham 
was beheaded in due course before his father, 
which some said was a piece of concerted 



THE TRAITOR GOVERNOR OF HULL. 253 

malice, that he might not die a baronet, which 
he would have done had his father suffered 
first. 

On the 2nd of January, Sir John was brought 
out upon Tower Hill and mounted the scaffold, 
accompanied by the Rev. Hugh Peters and other 
ministers and friends. He met his fate bravely 
and like a soldier, and before laying his head on 
the block, addressed the people, saying — " Gentle- 
men, — I know no more of myself but that I 
deserve this death from God Almighty, and that 
I deserve damnation and the severest punishment 
from Him. As for the business of Hull — the 
betraying it from the Parliament — the ministers 
that have all been with me and gave me good 
counsels, I thank them. Neither was I any 
ways guilty of it. That's all I can say to that 
act," etc., etc. 

It will be seen that he was no orator, 
and did not give utterance to his ideas in 
a very clear and coherent manner. The speech 
of his son, three days previously, was very 
superior, both in matter and manner. 

After Peters had addressed the crowd, 
putting Sir John's sentiments in better 
language, the unfortunate baronet placed his 



254 YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE. 

head on the block. His head was stricken 
off by the headsman, and his mutilated 
remains were buried in the church of All- 
Hallows, Barking, the liturgy being read at his 
funeral, although it had been abolished by Act 
of Parliament. 



Elegantly bound in cloth gilt, demy 8vo., price, 6s. 

WotUfyitt (gttthe. 



By EDWARD LAMPLOUGH. 



CONTENTS 



T 



HIS work contains carefully- written accounts of the following 
Yorkshire Battles, which cannot fail to interest and instruct the 
reader. It is a book of more than local interest : — 



Winwid field, etc. — Battle of Stamford Bridge — After Stamford Bridge — 
Battle of the Standard— After the Battle of the Standard— Battle 
of Myton Meadows — Battle of Boroughbridge — Battle of Byland 
Abbey — In the Days of Edward III. and Richard II. — Battle of 
Bramham Moor — Battle of Sandal — Battle of Towton — Yorkshire 
under the Tudors — Battle of Tadcaster — Battle of Leeds — Battle of 
Wakefield— Battle of Adwalton Moor— Battle of Hull— Battle of 
Selby — Battle of Marston Moor — Battle of Brunnanburgh — Fight 
off Flamborough Head — Index. 



©pinions of tbe ipress. 

" A remarkably handsome volume, typographically equal to the best productions 
of any European capital." — North British Daily Mail. 

' ' A handsome book. It is extremely interesting, and is a work which cannot fail 
to find a permanent place amongst the best books devoted to the history of the county. 
The military history of Yorkshire is very closely investigated in this work. Although 
the book is written in a clear and picturesque style, great care and attention have been 
given to the researches of antiquaries and historians, and many authorities have been 
consulted, in consequence of which, several long-established errors have been corrected, 
and some oft-repeated but superficial conclusions confuted. Special attention has been 
given to the military history of the county during the great rebellion — a subject which 
has yet to be fairly and intelligently treated by the general historian. So far as the 
limits of the work permit, the general history of the county, from epoch to epoch, has 
been sketched, maintaining the continuity of the work, and increasing its interest and 
value both to the general reader and the specialist. The printers of the book are Messrs. 
Wm. Andrews and Co., Hull, and it must be regarded as a good specimen of local 
typography."— Wakefield Free Press. 

"An important work." — Beverley Independent. 

" Does great credit to the new firm of book publishers." — Yorkshire County Magazine. 

"A beautifully printed volume." — Halifax Conner. 

" Mr. Lamplough's book is thoroughly readable, and is written in a manly as well 
as a discriminating spirit." — Yorkshire Post. 



LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & CO. 
HULL: WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE HULL PRESS. 



Elegantly bound in cloth gilt, demy 8uo., price 6s. 

©ft>*£ime (J)unie0tnettfe* 

By WILLIAM ANDREWS, F.R.H.S., 

Author of " Curiosities of the Church," " Historic Romance," 

" Famous Frosts and Frost Fairs," " Historic 

Yorkshire," etc. 



CONTENTS. 

Carefully prepared papers, profusely illustrated, appear 
on the following subjects : — 

The Ducking Stool — The Brank, or Scold's Bridle — The Pillory- 
Punishing Authors and burning books — Finger-Pillory — The Jougs 
— The Stocks — The Drunkard's Cloak — Whipping — Public Penance 
in White Sheets — The Repentance-Stool — Riding the Stang— Gibbet 
Lore— Drowning — Burning to Death — Boiling to Death — Beheading 
— Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering — Pressing to Death — 
Hanging — Hanging in Chains — The Halifax Gibbet — The Scottish 
Maiden, etc. — An Index of five closely-printed pages. 

MANY CURIOUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 



P-RESS OPINIONS. 

"This is an entertaining book . . . well-chosen illustrations and a serviceable 
index. ' ' — A Ihenceum. 

" A hearty reception may be bespoken for it." — Globe. 

" A work which will be eagerly read by all who take it up.'"— Scotsman. 

" It is entertaining." — Manchester Guardian. 

" A vast amount of curious and entertaining matter."— Sheffield Independent. 

" We can honestly recommend a perusal of this book." — Yorkshire Post. . 

" Interesting, and handsomely printed." — Newcastle Chronicle. 

" A very readable history. "—Birmingham Daily Gazette. 

" Mr. Andrews' book is well worthy of careful study, and is a perfect mine of 
wealth on the subject of which it treats." — Herts Advertiser. 

" It is sure of a warm welcome on both sides of the Atlantic." — Christum Leader. 



London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co. 
Hull: William Andrews & Co., The Hull Press. 



